


Hennessy Got Nothin’ On You.

by DirtyMartini (Zetaii)



Category: GOT7
Genre: M/M, Oops, also smut, and mark is shy and helplessly in love, fluff fluff fluff, lowkey 2jae - Freeform, marks a fuckboy and jinyoung is a stripper/prostitute but its super fluffy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-30
Updated: 2017-05-25
Packaged: 2018-06-05 12:31:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 46,712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6704659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zetaii/pseuds/DirtyMartini
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"A picture will last you longer," Jinyoung said. "But I'll have to charge."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Introduction.

Mark was a fuckboy.

The first time he was called that, it was when his girlfriend broke up with him with tears in her eyes after he and his 'not-actually-related-brother-from-another-mother' Jackson Wang were checking other girls out at the beach. When Mark asked her if a fuckboy was someone who had a lot of sex, it ended up with him getting a slap on the cheek, and later a shove on the shoulders as she ran away crying.

No, if there was one thing that Mark Tuan, Taiwanese descent and Cali-born Mark Tuan was not (and trust me, Mark is a lot of things) being embarrassed about of his fuckboy-ness was one thing that he was definitely not.

So really, it was no surprise that his fuckboy quartette of doom spent one half of their highschool days shoving their hands his bags of chips while playing videogames, and the other half shoving their hands in each others pants in a totally brotherly way, as Jackson put it when Yugyeom rudely asked him if he was into Mark, or something.

They were wasting time and doing a lot of less fucking than they wanted, but they were somewhere, regardless.

It was fine, no, it _really_ was fine.

Mark was happy - he couldn't complain, could barely imagine it being any other way. If he hadn't met the other, smart, lovely and _beautiful_ other, he would've spent his days being easily satisfied, going to a sub-par college in a sub-par neighbourhood studying something he wasn't especially passionate about, to get a sub-par job at a sub-par company he definitely didn't get a degree for. It only became clear to him afterwards on what road he was walking, blind to the cars rushing right behind him while only seeing a couple of steps ahead of himself.

“Let's play a game, Mark.” BamBam said, Jackson and Yugyeom sitting on the porche of his home posing as if were a late nineteens gangster movie and not the set of another sub-par day of Mark's sub-par but happy life.

A game and a bottle of Henessey, that's how it all began.

 

-

 

Jinyoung was a stripper.

Actually, he did the work on the stage and off the stage.

The first time he was called that, it was by an older woman who had a thing for younger boys, who tipped him good and he ended in buying himself a motorbike he was reasonably proud of and was also given some gold necklaces he was planning on cashing out when the older woman got bored of him.

The motorbike eventually got taken away a week after he bought it for parking in handicapped space, and when he went to exchange the gold for money to pay for it, he was told that the gold was fake.

Still, Jinyoung wasn't unhappy.

In fact, from a scale of _braindead_ to  _ecstatic_ , Jinyoung was more on the side of _not_ wanting to die every morning when he woke up.

His mother always said that a true winner in life is someone who has money but doesn't care for it - Jinyoung had already mastered one of those, which was the art of not caring for money so, in his books, he was doing a pretty good job at this whole life thing.

It was fine, it really was.

Jinyoung had okay friends who didn't sell all of his vital organs over the border, and his parents were well, breathing and alive. If you asked him if he liked working at the strip club, he'd say that it was okay, it was alright, a lot of weird things happen, sometimes guests are rude, the Hennessey tastes weird after a while and don't take coffee from strangers.

Yet out of everything Jinyoung has seen (and boy, Jinyoung has seen a lot), Mark was probably the strangest of them all.

It was a winter Friday night, and the theme of the night was sensuality instead of trashy, and Jinyoung had the art of seduction down to the T. A boy in slacks and an oversized Chicago Bulls shirt was staring at him with a non-alcoholic drink in his hand, and it was only because Miami Heat lost against them that same week as to why the boy didn't get beat up on the spot for the shirt he was wearing in California that night.

He stuck out like a penny between needles, colour between monochrome and a diamond between the dirt.

With a Chicago Bulls shirt, a Friday night and a two-for-one Hennessey shot deal, that's where it all began.


	2. Chapter One.

_"They called it the strippers magic, pay before you push and grab it."_

-

It started out as a joke, some laughs, a few dares. It started out like it usually did. With some drinks and _I-bet-you-cant's_ of which someone always _could_. Mark never questioned any of the things that happened to him - not really - and he accepted almost everything: For example, Jackson was his bestfriend, he knew that much. He knew that his name was Mark Yien Tuan, and that he got _okay_ grades because he didn't hate studying like he was apparently supposed to according to the _Cool Kids Middle and Highs School Guide To Poverty, Drug Dealing & Five Different Kinds of Sexually Transmitted Diseases Before the Age of 21_. He knew that his father was extremely liberal in his upbringing, and he knew that his mother was somewhere lost between the _chiringitos_ and the _panaderias_ of Peru. He knew that he knew a bit of Spanish from his time there, like, enough to get by and even insult people in their slang. He knew that he lived in the United States, South California, and he knew that his roots were in Taiwan, which he was taught not to relate to China.  
   
He knew that he graduated from highschool, and he knew that he was supposed to go to college when the summer was over. He knew that, so he took a first year orientation course that was meant for people who were going to drop out the second year in - or that's what his sister said -  mostly because he didn't know what he wanted to be a slave to for the rest of his life so he could die feeling a little less than depressed. He knew that he was good with languages. He knew that he didn't want to be a translator. He knew that he wanted to travel, but he didn't know exactly what steps to take to get there.  
   
He knew that he wore basketball shirts that were too big for his skinny body which were also overpriced and also probably made in a sweatshop in like, Bangladesh, or something. But they were NBA limited editions, and Mark figured that he wasn't going to change anything by boycotting them by himself.

Mark didn't know that he should've spent less time drinking himself silly, smoking himself stupid and flirting his way to get his ass handed to him when the girls he promised love to found another boy to share the McDonalds bathroom stalls with after calling him selfish and full of himself - his pride was most hurt when they said that he was bad at sex, though.  
   
Mark honestly wasn't overly in love with himself. He was tall and wore a lot of hoodies and listened to Drake in class and smoked weed in the highschool parking lot which wasn't nearly as cool as it the movies made it out to be, because they had less than twenty minutes to smoke it up, and even then the teachers would catch them more of than they would not sucking the life force out of their joint. He also liked gatorade and had a playlist of Wiz Khalifa, Partynextdoor and The Weeknd songs saved on his phone.  
   
Mark was fine with being simple. No, really, _he was fine with being simple_. He left his existential days behind when everything piled up and his stress left him too exhausted to think for himself, and instead let himself get dragged through the system like they wanted him to. Mark was honestly fine with following the scheme of expectations to oil the capitalist engines a little more. At least it didn't tire him out.  
   
What _did_ tire him out from time to time was Yugyeom and BamBam, Yugyeom and BamBam who came as a two for one deal in his life - and suddenly it wasn't just Jackson and him against the world anymore, but somehow it turned into a small army of the four of them, plus whatever aquaintences were with them at the time. They'd always come and leave the party together, though.  
   
Mark liked that part the best, he thought. Even though Yugyeom abused his friendship to come into his house whenever he felt like it and drank his milk straight out of the carton in a way not even his father allowed him to do. He didn't like that part that much, he decided. But BamBam's father was an event manager who gave them free tickets to concerts - he definitely liked that.  
   
Friendships need to come with both benefits and bad fortune, from time to time, in the necessary amounts. Mark vaguely remembers someone telling him that at some point, but he couldn't exactly pin-point who it was, where that person told him that and what the conversation was about to lead up to that conclusion. Mark found himself thinking about it a lot.  
   
Mark related this not just to friendships, but to all his relationships in life.

He thought it made enough sense to live by it.  
   
He never wondered what his bad sides where, though, and got a little anxious thinking about what his benefits were, aswell. He tried not to think about it too much.  
   
"Let's play a game." BamBam said, and Mark briefly wondered how come a Thai fuckboy with a bad haircut could sound so malicious saying that. "It's Friday, you know what that means."  
   
"Church club?"  
   
The door behind him clunk shot. Mark left his keys on the desk in his room which served more as another closet than studying purposes. He was wearing nothing but his Chicago Bulls shirt and a pair of slackers and shoes and a snapback. Mark sat down on the porch with them. Pretending like he didn't just like himself out of his own home.  
   
"No, dumbass, _clubs._ "  
   
"Your bitchass isn't going to be let in anywhere even when you're eighty years old and decomposing, babyface." Mark said, and he meant every word of it, mildly annoyed now that he locked himself out of his own house.  
   
"Who's the bitchass here? Yugyeom, get the car."  
   
He regretted existing nothing more than four meek hours later after getting almost manhandled into Yugyeoms most _definitely_ ilegal car with his very much _false_ drivers license het got for ten dollars at the local hackers garage-turned-computer-store. Really, his name was Owen and Yugyeom would always make fun of him in class for having curly red hair and stuttering when he talked. There were rumors that he was offered a job at Google, and Yugyeom made it a point to be nice at him from there onforward. Funnily enough, Owen and his gang (because computer nerds had those) started making fun of him instead. All grudges were over with once they graduated though, and when they told Yugyeom about this amazing guy who makes identical drivers liscenses and fake id's as a part-time job, Yugyeom considered running away when he saw who was the mastermind behind it. The whole story made for good laughs.

In any case, the car itself was a red Fiat that made too much noise. Leaked too much oil, and Yugyeom bought from a man in a coat who didn't speak English behind Tescos, and Jackson was fully convinced that the man was actually part of the CIA and that the car was either going to explode someday on the road, or they were going to arrest all of them for breaking most road laws there are - it was just a wild guess though, nobody actually had their drivers liscense to know.

Still. It was convenient for more than road trips and dragging x person back home when that person was pissed drunk. And honestly, Mark thought, they deserved some credit, because the only time they bumped and broke the backlights of a car was when Mark insisted that _of course_ he could drive, he was a pro at playing GTA and Mario Kart, after all. Naturally, they never let him drive again.  
   
So after strategically avoiding police cars, they reached the _California Institute of Art_ , and really, Mark should've smelt the trouble at that very moment.  
  
"Thank you so much for doing this." Taecyeon said when they got there, and it was only after two beers when he realized that he should consider getting new friends, because his shitty current ones sold his ass out to return a favour Taecyeon did for them a couple of parties ago. Something with _girls_ and his _bed_ and _buying new sheets._ Mark vaguely remembered it, he didn't remember volunteering to return the gesture.  
   
But Mark just couldn't say no when Taecyeon looked so damn excited when he gave him is overpriced camera that was also probably made in some sweatshop in Pakistan. This annoyed Mark a lot more than the shirts he was wearing. This was an art university, after all, where only the most pretentious rich kids could ever dream of getting in.  
   
Still, Mark asked him why he didn't go himself, and Taecyeon gladly reminded him that he was still underaged because he skipped a year and was just seventeen years old doing his first year at a prestigious college. He made sure to say it extra loud so all the pretty girls could hear him even though they probably heard the story a hundred times over. Taecyeon liked to brag about it, despite saying that studies were overrated in "today's society." Really, Mark was not sure why they were even frends.  
   
Whatever. With this and that, it's how Mark ended up in front of _La Vie en Rouge_ , which looked just as stereotypical as it sounded, while talking to Jackson who walked with him in case he was going to chicken out and run away. Mark half expected to hear _Lady Marmalade_ play from outside, and was just a little dissapointed when he didn't.  
   
"Bam said you'll thank us later." Jackson said.  
   
"I'm not into dudes, sorry." Mark yawned. "Unlike you. Why didn't you volunteer to do this?"  
   
Jackson scoffed. "Man, that's low. Just because I'm bisexual doesn't mean tha-"  
   
"Yeah yeah," Mark interrupted him. "Save it."  
   
"You promised to keep it a secret."  
   
"Haven't told anyone, have I?" Mark said back. "Not like there's much to say when you were sucking faces with BamBam just now, anyway."  
   
"It was a dare-"  
   
"It's called _brotherhood,_ " Mark finished, mimicking BamBam. "Right. Anyway, I just go in and snap shots on the lowkey for Taecyeons project right?"  
   
Jackson nodded. "Basically. Apparently it's some weird myth over there or something, you'll see."  
   
What he saw though, first, was the surrounding. Apparently it was on the brink of some sort of Chinatown because most shops had Chinese characters on them, and the only snackbar that was open was called _The Great Wall_ , and it smelled really good and Mark realized he hadn't eaten that day. It wasn't Winter. But it kind of felt like it should have been. The streets were empty like a horror film, and the air smelled like trees and rain and gasoline and concrete and springrolls. Mark was not sure why. He didn't question it.  

On the contrary of his expectations, there weren't any men outside wearing latex or gagged without reason, nor did anyone grope him on the spot.  
   
"Well, you're on your own now." Jackson reminded him, bringing him back to Earth from his temporary awe over the stripclub in front of him.  
   
"Right." He said. "R-right."  
   
"You okay?"  
   
Mark felt a little dazed, a little impressed, a little scary anticipation building in his belly that he was not sure where it came from or why it was there. He nodded anyway.  
   
Then Jackson pushed him towards the door, and he opened it expecting old, overweight perverts to stare down at him. Mark wasn't homophobic. His household wouldn't allow it even if he tried - he was just intimidated.  
   
There was none of that, though.  
   
There was a large space covered in dark brown wood that was almost a very dark shade of red - on the left side there was a beautiful and dark long bar that looked a little more authentic and darker brown than the rest of the club - behind the bar, the wall was covered in at least ninety different brands of alcohol and glasses and bowls; there was also a beer pipe, and a bartender who had the most impossible shade of black hair and a lopse red tie around his neck cleaning cups with such an art Mark would almost think he was trained to do it.  
   
On the left side there was a younger looking boy in the same suit - but with a black tie instead - serving the drinks to the different customers on the red couches, both men and women with pretty dresses and suits - posters of different vintage men and women framed on the wall.

Beth Hart was playing, but the volume was very low.  
   
Mark completely forgot why he was there, in the first place. The sisha bowls were placed on the table between the couches, and the smoke went to his head. The drop dead gorgeous bartender was aware of how confused he was, so he raised his eyebrows at him as if asking him what he was doing there and if he was even legal.  
   
Mark felt small compared to him, for some reason.  
   
Something must have clicked in the bartenders mind, though, because he nodded towards the door right next to the bar - Mark didn't even realize it was there - he blamed the dim lights. It was too late to back out now, because Mark couldn't live with having the uncomfortably handsome bartender look at him weird again. So he shut the door behind him, repeated his mantra of "oh, fuck it" under his breath and and walked forward. The bartender already had his attention on a lady client with a pretty polka dress looking like she came straight out of the seventies in front of him, anyway.  
   
So he opened the door, and it honestly felt like he stepped in a whole different universe; he looked back at the lobby making sure it was still the same place, and before he could put his tail between his legs and run, the door was already shut, the sign on it said "Enter Only" and Mark was smart enough to know the exit was probably on the right side of the stage.  
   
He was shoved - there was no time to be bewildered because the place was so  full that there was barely any space to breathe in; the smoke was so thick Mark thought he was going to die between the mass, his snapback fell off and in a matter of second he was pushed towards a wall next to the speakers where there were no people that didn´t want to go deaf by the ripe young age of whatever.  
   
There was so much shouting and whistling, bass and moaning. Mark remembered he was in a strip-club. He looked at the stage, and suddenly the music became secondary and the shouts became white noise.  
   
Some remix of _The Hills_  by _The Weeknd_ was playing, and there were four boys on stage, all in really, really ripped jeans and crop tops with long sleeves laced from the back - in the center there was the enigma that swallowed up everything else.  
   
He was beautiful. He was so so so beautiful. Mark was mesmerized and caught in the magic so quickly he should have been worried for himself - but the boy had such beautiful curves hugged by his jeans that he forgot about that.  
   
The boy was sitting on a chair - literally just sitting on a chair - swaying his hips to the beat of the music, index finger between his teeth, and then he stood up, walked slowly and sensually, his skin glowing, Mark's breath sped up and he was in awe.  
   
The boy walked on the runaway in the center of the room, and then he dropped low, low low. Got on all fours, curved his back and stretched out; dollar bills shoved in his pants and between his lips, he himself grabbing the money from mens chest pockets.  
   
Then he walked to the reserved seats and found his apparent victim in a suit, he went on his knees and then grinded on the older man, wrapped his legs around him and the man looked so absolutely over him.  
   
Mark was left speechless.    
   
When the older man tried to touch his legs, the boy slapped his hands away and whispered something in the mans ear, let his hands wander down his thighs and quickly enough, he was on stage again - the boy looked at his audience, and Mark didn't know how stupid he looked right next to the speakers.  
   
Mark could have been left deaf for all he cared. He didn't think he would even notice it if he did.  
   
Weirdest of all, it wasn't like he got horny or wanted to fuck the boy.  
   
It´s more like he wanted to watch and admire him forever.  
   
Jackson warned him about this strippers magic. Mark barely remembered his exact words.  
   
He was too wrapped up to take notice of a security man getting closer to him, and only realized he was there when he tapped him on the shoulder.  
   
"Are you new here?" He asked, and Mark looked at him from tip to toe - kind of - because no information could get in his head. "Cameras are prohibited."  
   
Mark looked down on his hands, realized Tacyeons expensive canon was in his right, a beverage he was not sure how it got there in the other.  
   
Before he could explain or beg him not to break the camera on the spot, he was shoved towards the exit - he looked up the stage once more, and he swore to god he could see the boy in the center grin at him like he thought it was so hilarious that a security guard had to embarrassingly kick out a kid with a Chicago Bulls shirt and a non alcoholic drink in his left hand, which was smashed on the floor by the crowd.  
   
Naturally, the security got tired, and with one hard push he was smacked against the wall by the exit, and he pushed instead of pulled, but eventually he got out of the strip-club, somehow, someway, and he could sort of breathe again.

  
   
\--

   
The other dancers only liked him because he was friends with the son of the owner of the strip-club. Jinyoung knew that, and he absolutely adored being able to get away with saying whatever he wanted to say because nobody would dare to talk back to him, anyway. He was still on top of the strippers food-chain, and it goes without saying he brought in most of the cash the house lived on.  
   
It wasn't his fault the boys and girls just couldn't resist him, after all.  
   
Sitting by the make-up table, he catched his own reflection, and gave him a one-over - he was a little sweaty, his hair curled up a bit from the humidity, and someone ripped his jeans even more than they already were.  
   
"Good job, Jin."  
   
The water bottle he gave him was overpriced and had nothing special about it. Jinyoung drank it anyway, let some of it drip out of his mouth and the water felt ticklish over his Adams apple, he caught Youngjae, the youngest waiter, staring.  
   
"Don't get funny ideas Jae, where's your boyfriend?"  
   
"He's not my boyfriend," Youngjae said and sat down on the barstool in front of him - he checked himself out in the mirror. "But daddy called, he wants this months numbers."  
   
"Daddy is too kind to us." Jinyoung smiled, and threw the empty water battle into the bin in the corner of the packed dressing room with flowers and dresses and enough make-up to open a store, and missed.  
   
"Jaebum wouldn't agree."  
   
"Daddy issues," Jinyoung said. "They love each other in their own way."  
   
Youngjae shrugged.   
   
"Oh, here." Jinyoung threw him exactly four hundred dollars - the house got twenty percent of it, so it was eighty percent for them, and three hundred twenty for himself just for shaking his ass a bit, Jinyoung regretted not one decision he made in his life.  
   
And the night wasn't even over. Jinyoung might say he was a stripper with pride, but he was a little more shy about the other side that his art had to offer. It shouldn't surprise anyone to say that the strip-club he worked at offered other kinds of services for a pretty price - it was definitely illegal, and Jaebum was absolutely paranoid thinking a police officer might discover them undercover. Jinyoung argued that they had better things to think about than some dodgy strip-club, but he'd digress.  
   
"Are you done for the night?" Youngjae suddenly asked, lowering the light's intensity while balancing on the barstool - Jinyoung was sure he was going to break his neck someday.  
   
"Nope - one of the suits is stressed out tonight and needs my yours truly to take his mind off of his wife and children tonight." Jinyoung smiled.  
   
"Ah." Youngjae nodded. "Dirty bastards."  
   
"Yeah, well - I'm going for a smoke."  
   
So he did. Youngjae waved at him, and before he closed the door him he could hear him say that his ass is worth his bread and butter.  
   
The dirty garbage cans in the nauseating small alleyway street was probably Jinyoungs personal sanctuary at the strip club - ironically he could at least breath in fresh air on top of his throne of trash instead of breathing in any more of the clubs smell of vodka, nicotine, cologne and daddy issues.  
   
No,  Jinyoung never liked it when men wore cologne that cost more than fifty dollars. The men that came to see him always tried to impress him with their wealth, and frankly, that only impulsed Jinyoung to make it rain even more out of their pockets.  
   
Thinking about this, he took a drag from his cigarette, and then another. He noticed a strangers body staring at him from the shadows in the alleyway that was only - slightly - lightened up by a single street lap that was twitching (it was kind of cliché, really) but it only got on his nerves when the song inside the club, Rihanna or something, ended.  
   
"A picture will last you longer," Jinyoung said." I'll have to charge, though."  
   
The stranger visibly flinched, then he got closer, then he blushed, muttered some apologies and whatnot under his breath and really, Jinyoung didn't care for any of that because he grabbed the strangers wrist when he turned on his heel to hit and run. No, Jinyoung was too impressed with the fact that someone actually had the guts to walk into the alleyway to take some creepy snapshots of him to let him go.  
   
"Who are you?"  
   
So Mark turned around, breathed out. Looked at Jinyoung from the tip to toe - he briefly considered requesting to go back to primary school because he forgot how to form a coherent sentence without stuttering.  
   
“Ah. Uh, I-I'm sorry.”  
   
"You were staring at me all night long, it's your first time in this kind of place, isn't it?" Jinyoung said - the boy looked so royally out of place that he could notice him from the stage. Of course, any normal person without shit for brains would know that standing right next to the speakers was a bad idea, and between the Armani and Alexander Wangs, a Chicago Bulls shirt was bound to stick out.  
   
He wasn't waiting for an answer, instead Jinyoung crossed his legs, took another drag and looked at the quite obviously younger boy. He wondered how he was going to do this because college students weren't exactly his expertise - he didn't look like someone who was waiting to be called daddy or like he needed a stripper to make him feel superior or something, he didn't look like he was in the dire need of a good fuck, either.  
   
“Hold this for me.” He gave him his cigarette and bent over to tie his shoelaces. Mark gasped.  
   
When he was finished and straightened his back, he moaned from the stretch, delighted.  
   
“What's your name?” Mark dared to asked.  
   
“You can call me Junior, baby.”  
   
And then the door opened almost violently, the bartender from earlier barging through, and then did Mark notice the metal studs in his ears and the leather jacket draped over his shoulder, over his suit. He looked at his right, then found Jinyoung sitting on the trashcans on the left.  
   
"Jinyou-" He noticed Mark. "I mean, Junior. Who is this?"  
   
"Who is this?" Jinyoung asked, looking at Mark.  
   
"I'm Mark." Mark said, shocked he could say it without spontaneously dying on the spot.  
   
"He's Mark," Jinyoung said matter-of-factly. "We're gonna have to kill you now, Mark."  
   
"Why?" Mark asked, but he thought that he wouldn't mind being killed it was by his hands, though.  
   
Jinyoung looked at the bartender, amused. "The cat's out the bag now Jaebum, daddy is gonna sell both our organs to a terrorist organization now."  
   
Jaebum hissed at him, telling him to shut up.  
   
"Not if we keep him quiet."  
   
Jinyoung sighed. "Don't. I'll take care of it."  
   
The cigarette that Mark was holding was starting to burn his skin.  
   
Jaebum forgot about Mark, apparently, because he whispered something in Jinyoungs ear, and then told him to get his ass inside before the guest starts throwing temper tantrums in the lobby.  
   
"That bad?"  
   
"He's sweating like a pig," Jaebum stated, disgusted. "You know what I think about your extra services, remembe-"  
   
"No penetration before telling you, press the emergency button if I'm in any danger, ask the money up-front, I know, I know," Jinyoung sing-songed, and looked at Mark. "Looks like I have to go now. Goodnight, sweetheart."  
   
"Your cigarett-"  
   
"Keep it." Jinyoung winked, and then with a loud thud from Jaebum shutting the door shut, Mark was left alone in the alleyway. Fingers burning, the scene replaying in his head. He wondered if it was common for strippers to talk like that to strangers. It probably was, it was their job, after all. He wondered if the bartender was something special to him, and he couldn´t help but feel funny at the thought.  
   
No, the cigarette was still burning, and Mark, despite being against smoking cigarettes, took a drag from it, anyway.  
   
He lamely realized that it was kind of like an indirect kiss from the guy who was sucking some other mans dick by now. Really, he didn't know how he was going to explain any of this to Taecyeon, or to himself. Jinyoung probably would wake up not remembering him, and Mark would still feel like that was the most magical thing he had ever lived in his nineteen years of life.

Strippers magic, he thought, pay before you push and grab it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Honestly, I´ve read this ten times over, and I´m still not happy with it, but if I don´t upload it now I might dwell on it forever, so here it is. Really, I´m a little stuck at the moment, but I tried. Ah. Thank you for reading.


	3. Chapter Two.

_"Prostitutes like him where everything and nothing all at once - they were the best listeners, life-advisors and knowers of human psychology. They were a shoulder to cry on, they were fashionistas and wielders of the make-up brush. They could be dominant, they could be submissive. They were essentially unrecognized doctors, whose medicines passed like the falling of night."_

-

  
Prostitution was a simple trade - but just like all arts to master, it has a secret rulebook that you make for yourself and write your own tips and tricks that others have taught you or you have discovered for yourself to get better results. Jinyoung was eighteen when he did it for the first time - that first time was bad and painful but all the times after that it went a lot easier.

The seniors at the club told him that prostitutes had two virginities - the first time you have sex and the first time you get paid to do it. So Jinyoung was left to console himself with dollar bills and, after the second time, he was hired by the strip-club.  
  
Strippers and prostitution aren't mutually inclusive. More often than not, the strippers were too scared to take the next step and the prostitutes were too tired to bother with doing anything else.  
  
Thankfully, Jinyoung never - _really_ \- cared about the concept of virginity. Crying when he received his first pay, thus, made no sense to him even months later when he was already a seasoned professional (prostitutes have a short life-span, after all), because apparently you were already part of the family if you came back for a second time, most people quitting on the first night because they're too scared of pulling through.  
  
He often thought about it by himself, then, at a cafetaria across the street from the stripclub that stayed open till four a.m and mostly cleaned up after drunk teenagers that orderd five pancakes for ten people. Jinyoung liked coffee, Jinyoung also liked coffeshops and he _especially_ liked cheap stuff, so he automatically liked the coffeeshop, too. He concluded that he cried because of the circumstance, not the situation.  
  
Clients often asked him why such a beautiful boy as himself became a prostitute. Jinyoung immediately understood that it wasn't out of actual interest, but more to lead to the unavoidable _machismo_ the men felt when they promised to take him with them, change his life for the better or something, as if they were the answer to the questions of the tragic beauties that were just waiting for them to pick them up from their misery.  
  
Men liked to have others affirm their masculinity, get their ego stroked, they liked it more than the actual sex, Jinyoung learned. You're so manly, yeah, so big and cool.  
  
Prostitution and stripping were both jobs that requiered more human knowledge than most other industries. If you had your head on straight and didn't drink on the job, you'll be fine – a girl named Natasha from some old european eastern bloc country told him that.  
  
In any case – Jinyoung ended up in the stripclub of his bestfriends father of whom he didn't know was the owner. Jaebum avoided the subject at first. Jaebum didn **´** t really get along with his father, but as soon as Jinyoung started working there, Jaebum took up the bartending job like he wouldn't have it any other way.  
  
As to _why_ Jinyoung decided to become a sex-worker. Well, that's an awfully long story that's too cliché to even weep a lone tear at. No, really. Jinyoung graduated highschool, Jinyoung didn't like working a lot for little sweatshop pay. Jinyoung accepted a dinner-date with an older man who initially promised he had a job for him, and Jinyoung couldn't say he was lying, because that night he ended up with four-hundred dollars in his hands for thirty minutes work. That was a month worth of standing up filling stacks at the supermarket and getting yelled at by divorced managers. At this rate, Jinyoung could even study literature.  
  
With the promise of only doing it for the summer, the summer became long and soon enough he was twenty-one and he was still the same stripclub and Jaebum _still_ insisted he stopped, and Jinyoung _still_ might have a little crush on his childhood friend.  
  
He did actually enroll in an university though. He was a student. A reasonably good one at that. He saved up a lot of money, and nowadays only worked on the weekends and Wednesdays and Fridays - he could afford it because Jaebum was the son of his boss who he had never directly seen except when they were six years old and at Jaebums modest apartment eating Mac n Cheese.  
  
Jinyoung sometimes wondered if his father knew that _that_ six year old kid was now the biggest meal-ticket in of one of his clubs. He decided that he had probably forgotten all about him.  
  
As for his his own parents, they were in the dark about his job. He studied, he was happy, so anything was fine for them as long as it didn't pass the lines of cocaine (funny) – Jinyoung was scared of snorting anything, anyway, so they didn't have to worry about that. Jinyoung loved his irresponsible parents who couldn't pay his tuition and told him to fend for himself the most. It wasn't their fault that the system didn´t have room for more first generation, barely english speaking immigrants, after all.  
  
Overtime Jinyoung stopped thinking about his place and how he got there. He was doing it on his own terms and despite everyone telling him that there's no way back from easy money, Jinyoung argued that prostitution and stripping was anything but.  
  
They were everything and nothing all at once - prostitutes were listeners, life-advisors, they were a shoulder to cry on, a knower of human psychology, they were fashionistas, they were artists with the paint-brush of lipstick  and eyeliner. They were everything their client needed them to be for the night.

Jinyoung was, by all means, happy.  
  
Which is why he felt utterly violated when people didn't act the way he expected them to. Which is why he was almost _disturbed_ when a kid in a Chicago Bulls shirt sought for him at the back alley moldy and smelling of Chinese food made by Mexicans for anything _but_ sex. It was why his disturbance made place for light amusement and lots of caution he didn't know he had in himself.  
  
A smile a tease and trying to figure him out. That was the pattern he tried to follow and the pattern which was humiliated for no good reason.  
  
Jinyoung didn't want to show it, but he felt nervous for the first time in a long time, and was thankful when Jaebum came out to unknowingly save him.  
  
There was not much more to it. Jinyoung was intrigued when he should have called security on the boy. It's in the way that he didn't seem to know the rules of that place which made him jumpy. He was probably there for a dare between some frat boys who had to share a shower. He was probably disgusted with the sight. Jinyoung briefly wondered why Jaebum let him in in the first place.

The kid was stuttering like he had never seen a man before. If this wasn't an art trained to its core by now, Jinyoung would have been stuttering too.  
  
“Keep it.”  
  
Jinyoung mentally slapped himself for saying that. No, the boy was definitely coming back.

  
  
–

  
  
“So what you're saying is,” Jackson started. “You fell in love with a stripper. You, straight boy Mark Tuan.”  
  
“No one said that.” Except he did. Mark wanted to seem cool and collected and not tell anyone about his endeavors or the miracle of nature he found there, but Jackson was an exception to that, and right now Mark was kind of regretting becoming friends with him in the first place.  
  
“And you didn't want to fuck him, even once? Did you think of him sexually at all?”  
  
“That's the problem." Mark said. "I wanted to steal him and cover him in blankets and shit. I wanted to protect him all maternal and shit.”  
  
“You're so _eloquent,_ ” Jackson said dramatically, feeling like it was his right to patronize Mark at that moment. “I think you might just be confused because this was the first direct gay contact you've had. I mean, it all started with the bartender didn't it?”  
  
“No.” It didn't. “I wanted to jump the bartender. I wanted to worship the stripper.”  
  
Jackson nodded like he knew exactly what he was talking about and Mark knew that he didn't.

“Let's go together.” Jackson concluded.  
  
“I'm _not_ going to a gay strip-club with you. I just had to get over the fact I might not be as straight as I thought. Then I'll go with you and we'll accidentally get married and you'll get me pregnant, Jackson, _pregnant_ ," He thought about it." We're too young to have children, man, how are we gonna raise 'em?"  
  
“You're ridiculous,” Jackson concluded. “You shouldn't accept your sexuality so easily. It makes it harder for us who've been touching Ken's dick in the closet since I was six years old.”  
  
“Ken dolls don't even have dicks.”  
  
“ _Not_ the point.”  
  
Which is when Yugyeom stormed through Marks room door like he owned the entire block and the tiles on the floor he stepped on, and they were smart enough to change the subject immediately. Ignoring the fact that Yugyeom and BamBam invited themselves through the kitchen door far too often than they were supposed to be comfortable with, Mark was about to confront them on it before Yugyeom shut him up.  
  
“Action men did have dicks though. At least the knock-offs did.”  
  
Mark, at that moment, considered dying.

  
  
–

  
  
“Just don't do anything reckless.”

Is what Jackson said when they left Mark's house and Mark briefly wondered what he was talking about.  
  
The abandoned house was discovered by the pillars of the group – Jackson and Mark, when they were twelve. It had shattered glass and piles upon piles of files on the floor with different names and details that were woefully creepy at the time. The kitchen was taped so not to enter, but they did anyway, and found out that it was mostly clean and all the knives and forks were still there.  
  
Rusty, but there nonetheless.  
  
Overtime they took the forks and knives to the smallest bedroom of the house, which they turned into their makeshift secret fort - they found old couches and forced them inside at midnight when no one was around to see them and call the police on them. The billiard table which was in the living room turned into their table, and they even brought pillows from home.  
  
When they were fifteen and too scared to bring alcohol bottles home in case their parents caught them, they would put them in that abandoned room and, they realized, no one apart from them actually entered the place. So with lights that actually worked and a secret hide-out, it was natural to bring BamBam and Yugyeom there when they confided in them enough.  
  
They were the only ones who knew of the place, and brought posters from their home to decorate it some more, Yugyeom even brought soundproof mats from his fathers work and a stereo to blast music without anyone knowing.  
  
But Mark wasn't thinking about any of that when he faced the ceiling of his room, watching the ventilator go woosh and woosh - Jackson told the others that Mark had an important meeting, and although they didn't believe him because Mark never had something important to do, ever, Mark bribed them saying he left some grams in the room at the house.  
  
They were sleeping there tonight, probably. The abandonded house became their second home. The only rule was not to bring any girls over, bros before hoes or something, but Mark could probably get away with it. Not that he liked anyone enough to take them there, anyway, but it was worth thinking about.  
  
Why he stayed home was obvious, he got the crazy idea of going to the club again. He had the perfect plan in mind.  
  
Hell, he was already dressed in clothes slightly more appropriate that the other day – fitted ripped jeans instead of slacks, but his Nike runners were eternally plastered on his feet just like his oversized shirt was. This time plain white.  
  
“Where are you going?”  
  
“Hell.” Mark responded, sitting straight and looking at his sister looking at him with a snare.  
  
“And where are your homeboys to join you?”  
  
“Dunno – probably where your homegirls are too. You look terrible as usual.”  
  
“I told you to stop saying that stuff, you bitch.”  
  
“What? That you look like ugl-”  
  
His sister shut the door with an incredibly loud thump that made the bottles of whiskey on his bookshelf (without books) shake, and Mark felt half-regretful of his words while his other half was anxious. He should probably apologize to his sister with chocolate or something. He didn't know why he said at, but at that moment he stopped thinking about it.  
  
–

  
  
So it happened again.

Mark walked on the street except that he noticed many things he didn't notice before - strangely, oddly, nervousity generally makes people less aware of the smaller things, but Mark always worked better under pressure.  
  
He noticed, for one, that the unreliable street lamps that flickered too much. He was sure they were gonna burn someday. Another thing he noticed was a cafetaria right across the street from the stripclub; he assumed there were only dodgy chinese and thai snackbars in the area, but the cafetaria seemed awfully western - made out of wood and plants outside, it seemed kind of out of place for an outskirt of California.  
  
Mark needed an excuse, and thankfully, he found one. Before he headed to the club, he called Taecyeon, and he surprised himself with how smoothly he asked him how his art project was going and if the little footage he got was any help at all. Taecyeon said it was fine, and Mark, bullshitter extraordinaire, managed to convince him that he felt oh so bad and that he could go there tonight, Friday, again if he wanted.  
  
Taecyeon, despite skipping two grades just because he could, wasn't all that bright.  
  
That, or he genuinely wasn't interested in Mark's business.  
  
Either worked with him. And with a newfound courage of an expensive - Taecyeon made sure that everyone knew just _how_ expensive it was - camera in his hands, he walked towards the club as if the camera didn't almost get smashed the last time he was there. He was grateful for Taecyeons arrogance, because breaking it would probably end up in Taecyeon dramatically buying a new one and ridiculing Mark with every chance he gets in front of the pretty girls. He'd rather not think about that at all, and by the time he got to the same dark door, he shoved the camera in his bag.  
  
A breath - in and out. He opened the door and felt much more confident than the last time he was there, while simultaneously feeling like his heart was going to burst out of his chest and form a life of its own unlike the last time when his heart didn't know anything that could make him feel that way.  
  
A week passed. Mark wondered if he should have waited less.  
  
Before he could regret anything, the bartender - same old bartender - noticed him and walked towards him, here Mark noticed a breeze and realized he left the door wide open, thankfully there was no one in the room to judge him, apart from the taller bartender.  
  
“Good evening, I didn't expect to see you here so soon.”  
  
Mark didn't know a week was considered soon. What Mark did know was that the bartender was just being polite and in reality was saying that he didn't expect to see his sorry ass there ever again. Understandable, but still slightly offensive. The bartender, Jaebum or something, Mark remembered, pointed at his bag.  
  
“Safety goes first.”  
  
He had no real choice.  
  
The man was startled when he took out nothing but a camera, and Mark felt like a total creep when he stared at him almost disgusted. Feeling like defending himself wasn't going to work with the mysterious gorgeous man, Mark gulped instead, nervously looking at the door next to the counter hoping no one was going to come out to witness his fuck up.  
  
“Can I see your ID? Are you from the police?”  
  
“No – I'm just an art student who wants to film this place for, you know - _inspiration_.”

Jaebum observed him like he didn't know whether he should believe him or not.

“I go to CalArts, sir.”  
  
“Student ID?”  
  
“Not here – I can give you my drivers license though.”  
  
The drivers license, was, naturally, fake. The bartender believed him with shaking fingers and after putting the camera on the counter and turning around behind it, he prepared a glass of coke mixed with something out of a brown, pretty bottle, the dim light of the bar making it all the more alluring - Mark sat down on the barstool not thinking he had another choice.  
  
The glass was impressively pushed towards him without spilling.  
  
“It's Hennessey,” The bartender clarified. “Let's cut the crap - you're here for Jin- I mean, Junior right?”  
  
Lying was just going to work against him, so he shyly said yes, and then quickly added that he _really_ was here for an art project, too.  
  
“Well, I can't let you take cameras in the club. Under no circumstance – we're working with the law here. This could get you in some serious trouble.”  
  
Mark thought that this was funny coming from an undercover brothel but he didn't voice his thoughts.

“Drink,” Jaebum said. “It'll be ten dollars.”  
  
“I didn't order this!” Mark almost yelled - there he was, getting treated like some type of dog by a bartender that didn't even seem like he was that much older than himself, yet was still ordering him around like had some sort of authority. Mark was nervous. The gorgeous man made him nervous but he wasn't about to take it.  
  
“Just shut up and drink it.”  
  
“You can't talk to your clients like this.”  
  
Jaebum laughed. “Oh please, you're just a student still picking his nose. You know what the average clientele looks like here? You can't do _shit_.”  
  
“Then why let me in the first time?”  
  
“I didn't – you just walked in without my permission. Normally people order a drink - it's the entrance price, child.”  
  
Mark huffed, downing half the glass like it was his form of rebellion, as if that fazed the bartender at all - it didn't.  
  
“Who _are_ you? Did the frat boys dare you to come here or something? Do you think this is some kind of joke?”  
  
Mark sighed. “I told you, asshole, I'm a student who's here for a project. If you want to kick me out, do it. I'm still not paying for this drink which tastes like piss.”  
  
He was lying. The drink was actually pretty damn good and if Mark had a little less pride, he'd tell the bartender that - he didn't seem like someone who needed his ego stroked though, so he passed on it. Plus, his favourite dancer might have ended his shift already and if that was the case all this effort would have been put to naught – what his goal exactly was was still unclear. But he figured he'd find out when the moment came.  
  
He did't expect a pitbull of an overprotective bartender to confiscate his camera though. Nor did he expected him to force a drink down his throat. Really, it was pretty abusive.  
  
Which is when the door opened wide – right when he was going to insult the bartender some more feeling brave. It wasn't the door that lead to the actual club, but was the actual front door, strotting in was the smaller bartender and, god forbid, the dancer.  
  
Mark literally spat out his drink back in his cup and thankfully no one noticed except the bartender who looked scandalized at the act – Mark was disgusted, but he swallowed it again anyway, god damn, the drink was good.  
  
“No Youngjae, you don't _get_ it. _Pretty Woman_  is a problematic story encouraging young girls that prostitution will get them to find their Edward Lewis, it doesn't work that way an- Oh, hey Jaebum.”  
  
Jinyoung rushed towards them and Mark's breath hitched, disappointed when he ran past him to tackle the bartender instead, kissing him on the cheek. Now and only now did Mark notice it just turned midnight.  
  
“Oh, my, I didn't expect to see _you_ here again.”  
  
There it was. Mark could not find any words in his vocabulary apart from oh my goodness. Jinyoung, the endazzling stripper was next to him now, grabbing the glass which was in his hands and taking the final gulp.  
  
“Hennessey, you've got good taste.” Jinyoung said, smiling at him, but it felt more cat-like than human.  
  
“T-thank you. It's my favourite.”  
  
Mark mentally slapped himself, favourite, really? he just found out that drinks could cost more than five dollars and he sounded like a gradeschooler talking about his favourite colour or something. No, he really wanted to die at that moment, and Jinyoung was looking at him funny and the bartender and the other bartender were looking at each other like they were having a conversation – kind of like he and Jackson did and kind of like Yugyeom and BamBam could.  
  
They looked at each other, they looked at each other for a good ten seconds while Jinyoung was stood up and Mark was sitting down. Finally, as if Jinyoung realized something, he turned around to the bartender, asking him what the camera was for.  
  
“It's his.” He said, almost bored.  
  
Jinyoung smiled.  
  
“Did you want to film me?”  
  
Did he? Mark felt himself get hot, blush, grabbed his thighs and stared down on the floor feeling three pairs of eyes on him. He was embarassed and oh my god Jackson would laugh at him so hard if he saw him in this state for anyone. He wasn't supposed to be like this, because Mark was the one always taking the lead.  
  
“It's for an art project.” He stuttered softly, barely looked at him.  
  
“The only art here his the architecture and interior.” Jinyoung teased.

And, of course, Mark fell for it,  
  
“You too,” He said. “You are, too.”  
  
The shorter bartender burst out dead near tears at that. Mark could relate, except his tears were about to burst from embarrassment.  
  
But Jinyoung didn't laugh at him, somehow, for some reason. Instead, he looked at Jaebum, who shook his head.  
  
“Don't.” He warned.  
  
“Come in, Mark, the show is starting in twenty minutes.”  
  
“Jinyoung I said don-”  
  
“Oh who _cares_ Jaebum, just leave the camera here. Listen, I'm _personally_ inviting him, hell, he wants to see a show right? for school? let him. Sit down up front, say you're my cousin or something.”  
  
“That's just fucked up.” Jaebum commented, sounding tired.  
  
“True. Don't say cousin. Say, _special patron_.”  
  
“He literally _looks_ like he lives off of the one dollar McDonalds menu.” Jaebum screeched again.  
  
“Oh shut it. Come.”  
  
And with no more say in the matter and Taecyeons overpriced camera still on the counter, Jinyoung put his hand on Marks shoulder, and when he finally looked up, Jinyoung was already gone through the door. Just like magic.  
  
He looked at the bartenders expectantly.  
  
“Whatever.”  
  
So he walked in. Truthfully, he would have walked in regardless of what they had to say about it.  
  
Into the darkness of the club, sitting up front just like Jinyoung told him to – it was one step in a world he wasn't getting out of.

  
  
–

  
  
The world revolves around sex. Mark never stopped to think about this by himself, but one day Jackson, half unconscious and barely awake, told him this. He reasoned that the biggest money-making industry is the sex industry, and we're not even talking about the illegal, dodgy scene of child prostitution or gore pornography, human trafficking from the Carribean to Europe, which turns the entire deep web - the black market of the internet - in a lethal weapon with a tenfold more of influence than  legal sex work has.  
  
Moreover, Jackson continued, while sex work is already the most lucrative business, sex isn't just limited to prostitution or pornography. Novels automatically become more interesting with a strong sexual tension to relieve us from our stress or hype something up that doesn't exist in our day to day. Sex in novels, movies, sexy body figures of barbie dolls. Sex is the most primitive thing life has to offer, apart from eating and breathing, and it's damn near spiraling out of control with technology to push fantasies even further.  
  
Furthermore, and Mark wasn't exactly sure about this argument – people make themselves prettier or more handsome, more desirable to attract others. This doesn't mean they automatically want to fuck everytime they put on a sleeveless shirt, but it´s the knowledge of being wanted that counted and that wraps all of us - no exceptions - up in our own ego.  
  
Stripping fell somewhere between the lines of sex work. No, Jinyoung was definitely doing sex work, but what he was doing on stage and how he snapped his hips and bit his lips and got on his knees had nothing to do with it.  
  
Mark did not want to pin Jinyoung down on any surface to fuck him good – the thought hadn't even crossed his mind the entire week and boy, Jinyoung was on his mind a lot. He didn't want to touch him in any way but to comfort him and make him feel good about himself.  
  
Even there, second row in a high-end strip club he wasn't supposed to be in and suits he wasn't supposed to be around – the music started and only then did Mark think he really knew what Jackson meant with his monologue.  
  
The world revolves around sex. Mark had breathing proof right in front of him, because the beat didn't so much drop and all the men turned into wild animals without any inhibitions or worry of how desperate they looked.  
  
Jinyoung was there - and it only now crossed his mind that he was probably one of the few who knew that that was his real name - with two other handsome boys, one a little younger and the other a little older. The men standing got closer to the stage, yelling and shouting and whistling, Jinyoung basked in it over the DJ's voice, getting down and down and down in some loose shorts that his sister would wear at home.  
  
But there was something different. It was something no one noticed but him, mainly because it was about him.  
  
Ten minutes passed when the music slowed down and the dancers got off stage into the reserved area - the seats Mark was at.  
  
Jinyoung got on a strangers lap, just barely touching him until the man forced his hips down to grind on him, dropping money like it was some kind of charity, everyone was watching him, but Jinyoung was watching Mark instead.  
  
He bit his lip, spread his legs a little without realizing, and kept the eye-contact with Jinyoung making the older man feel oh-so special. He was showing off, even when he whispered in the mans ear he kept his eyes on Mark, even when he stood up and walked towards another man in a bow-tie, even when all the dancers gave everyone the time of day and Jinyoung only passed by Mark, caressed his shoulder as he passed from behind him to walk back on the stage.  
  
Mark felt like he had the most intimate show out of all of them, and it should have been dangerous, because strippers were good at making people feel special like that.  
  
He loved watching Jinyoung dance on other men. He couldn't explain why, but he felt proud.  
  
Which is why when the next line-up of dancers came on stage, Mark was woefully uninterested and stood up with the intention of walking to the exit – but the shorter guy tackled him before he could do any of that, and in a matter of milliseconds he was dragged to a small room with red lights and pretty pillows and a pole in the middle of it.  
  
“Your camera,” the bartender said. “I stole it from Jaebum since I felt bad, it looks expensive, you must be really passionate if you're willing to risk it for a project.”  
  
Mark looked at him funny until he remembered the lie he was supposed to keep up.  
  
Something about the boy made him think that he didn't believe him in the first place, anyway, though. Mark felt like he could kind of trust him.  
  
“What's your name?” He asked.  
  
“Youngjae,” He answered. “How did you like the show?”  
  
Shouts interrupted their conversation, and Youngjae jumped from his place, rushing out of the room and into another which was supposed to be, Mark guessed, the dressing room.  
  
“Call a taxi.” Jaebum said. In front of him sat Jinyoung, looking unbothered and drinking water instead.  
  
The room was a total mess.  
  
“I'm not going to spend money just because you are paranoid.”  
  
Jaebum sighed as if they have had this argument a million times before. “I told you I'd pay for the stupid cab, _stupid_.”  
  
“I don't want _you_ spending money just because you're paranoid that someone is gonna stalk me home, either!”  
  
“You're so-”  
  
“So _what?_ ”  
  
“Guys,” Youngjae interrupted fearlessly. “Can you not fight for like, one night?”  
  
“Youngjae!” Jaebum beamed when he saw the other, obviously not noticing that Mark was behind him, or maybe he did and suddenly forgot how he didn't like him. “Good. Tell everyone to go home, we're closing up for the night.”  
  
“You can't do that.” Jinyoung deadpanned.  
  
Youngjae nodded. “It's Friday. Your dad will come for all of us if he finds out.”  
  
“i don't care.”  
  
“Well _I_ do.” Jinyoung sighed, stood up, put his sweater on.  
  
“What's even going on?” Youngjae asked tiredly, voicing exactly what Mark was wondering.  
  
“Jinyoung had two clients waiting for him tonight and decided that he didn't feel like spreading his legs after all, so now he wants to go home and I can't walk him and he doesn't want to take a cab and for some reason, he still doesn't know _why_ I'm worried.”  
  
“ _Fuck_ you.” Jinyoung concluded.  
  
“I can walk him.” Mark offered.

No one heard him.  
  
“Oh but did he tell you _where_ he's going? He's going to see that little blondie who called me gay in the third grade!”  
  
“No offense,” Youngjae said, this time more amused than anything. “But you kind of are.”  
  
“Yeah but she didn't have to tell me?”  
  
“I can walk him.” Mark repeated, louder this time and for some reason everyone shut up and looked at him as if they just realized he was there. Which wasn't that far from the truth, so it was fair.  
  
“Oh for _fuck's_ sake, what's this kid doing here?”  
  
Youngjae shrugged as if he had nothing to do with it.  
  
Jinyoung smiled at him.  
  
“Good idea. _Mark_ can walk me home.”  
  
“I need a paracetamol right now or I'll actually loose it.” Jaebum said dramatically, sitting down. Youngjae walked towards him to pat his shoulders. Honestly, Mark was at loss of words.  
  
But Jinyoung took no mind of his friends (something more than that?) mental health, and kissed his cheek after he took his bag and walked to Mark.  
  
“Thanks dad,” He said to Jaebum. "And Mark, make sure you treat me real nice, alright?"  
  
For the third time in one day, Mark felt like dying but realized that he couldn't because he was responsible of the most precious casket of gold.

And just like that, without much more concern over Jaebum looking like he was having three mental breakdowns all at once and Youngjae who seemed like he was used to it already, the two walked out of the stripclub, into the cold of the night, shoulder against shoulder next to each other.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got a spurt of inspiration for this fic last night and this happened. I´m extremely excited for what´s to come, and I think this might just be one of my favourite chapters I´ve ever written. In any case, my goal is to keep it fluffy and sexy at the same time. What do you guys think so far? thank you for reading<3


	4. Chapter Three.

_"You’ve got it bad."_

 

-

 

They walked out of the strip club and into the parking lot which smelled like concrete after the rain and leaked gasoline drops mixed with Chinese food with hard steps. One foot after the other, Jinyoung's Doc Marten boots and Mark's worn-out nikes contrasting beautifully in the darkness which had snackbar ledlamps and shopping carts sprawled across the parking lot as background to their movie.

Mark could not believe it! There he was, taking a chance and leap of fate for the first time in his life and going to the strip-club when he could have easily given up at first. Mark was ecstatic, really, couldn't have been any happier walking out in the cold of the night with his golden neckchain around his neck and snapback backwards on his head, walking next to the prettiest person he had ever seen who seemed like was conceived on the stage with all the lights pointing at him.

Mark wasn't sure, but he thought that there was a very high probability of him being the happiest person on the planet at that exact mome-

"Alright, that's enough kid."

What was that? Mark stopped mid-step and almost tripped forward when Jinyoung said it - he looked at him, confused, while Jinyoung looked bored and was checking his phone instead, clicking his tongue when he realized that it was quarter to one and he missed his favourite late night tv show because of his stupid argument with Jaebum just moments before that.

"Sorry?" Mark said, genuinely taken back because this was not how his romantic (okay, there were trashcans all around them and the lights didn't work) stroll with the love of his life (okay, objectively speaking, he barely knew him) was supposed to go.

"You aren't _actually_ going to bring me home, are you?" Jinyoung laughed meanly, as if the very assumption was ridiculous and childish. "You are all too much. I can walk myself, you know."

"No but, Jaebum sai-"

" _Fuck_ what Jaebum has to say," Jinyoung said. "It was cute till now, but it's time for you to head home, alright?"

This upset Mark, it was not alright - so when Jinyoung stepped forward without looking back at the boy he all the intentions of leaving behind, Mark took two more steps, when Jinyoung took three, Mark took four and so, almost two streets later of playing this game, Jinyoung turned around again.

"What are you _doing?_ "

"It's dangerous at night." Mark said matter-of-factly. And it was true ! drug dealers, you know, and gang fights and angry police men, it was not nothing.

Jinyoung was dumbstruck then. Really, he almost felt like Mark was a kicked puppy who loved his owner regardless of the abuse and, frankly, Jinyoung didn’t care for pets but did not want to be called heartless or something among those lines. So he looked at Mark and, Mark, comically, looked away blushing.

"How old are you?"

Mark yelped and Jinyoung did not know his age but knew he was too old to be yelping at anything.

"I’m nineteen."

A nineteen year old boy who blushed when someone looked at him and a nineteen year old boy who looked like the textbook example of fratboys Jinyoung didn’t like from his university but would love to confuse their sexualities for them. Jinyoung then sighed, laughed, and shaked his head.

"You need to man up if you want to protect me from the bad guys." Jinyoung said, and Mark took it as permission to let him walk him home (Mark was going to walk him home anyways, even if Jinyoung didn’t want him to - but it was good to know that it was mutual) so with his metaphorical tail wiggling and his metaphorical dog ears sticking up, Mark rushed towards Jinyoung and, so, they walked in reasonable silence.

Reasonable because whenever Mark wanted to ask him something, Jinyoung answered with sounds or single words, and that didn’t work for good follow-up conversation, but it was okay, because at least Mark got to talk to him but at the same time it wasn’t enough, because Mark could hear him talk from the sunrise to sundown, everyday.

Just like that, Mark learned that Jinyoung lived in an area where every apartment looked identical to the one next to it, with lots of windows and had at least fifteen floors, and there were a lot of dodgy alleyways and even more flickering lights (Mark wondered if his own block used up all the electricity or something) and even though it was silent, Mark understood why Jaebum would be worried for Jinyoung to walk alone from the club to his home.

"I’m here." Jinyoung said, and he twirled to look at Mark almost surprised that he made it this far at his worst. So he took out a cigarette, put it in Mark’s mouth who parted his lips in fascination of how close Jinyoung’s fingers were to his mouth, and then he lit it up.

"Shoot," He then said. "It stopped working."

And it did. Mark didn’t once think if he planned it or not, but when Jinyoung put his own cigarette between his own lips and got closer to Mark to lit it up from his own, it was slow and sensual and Mark felt like his knees turned jelly and his body heated up in his oversized sweater like the cigarette in his mouth. Just like that, he forgot that he didn't actually smoke and he almost forgot where he lived, just like he didn’t actually know where he was.

Not that he cared, not when Jinyoung smiled at him in the same way you’d smile at an abandoned puppy after it got some much needed affection. No, Mark was happy with every chewed bone Jinyoung was throwing at him and, at that moment, his smile felt completely personal and full of emotion.

"Goodnight, Mark." He said.

And, just like that, before Mark could say anything back and before he could ask if he could see him again, Jinyoung turned around and shut the door, leaving Mark sleepwalking his way to finding his house, dreaming of nicotine and pretty dancers that looked an awful lot like Jinyoung.

 

–

 

When Mark told Jackson about everything that went down the night before to his bestfriend, a few things happened.

First, Jackson laughed so hard and loud that he tipped over the can of coke (which was on Mark’s desk) and left a big mess of sticky goo that would bring all of the ants of the United States together in his house (or that’s how Mark put it) and even though he had no homework to wreck (why would he?) the coke did get on the cigarette he had placed there from the night before (Mark was disgusting like that.)

Secondly, Mark considered taking away Jackson’s ’bestfriend’ title. After all, he did not like getting laughed at.

Thirdly, the can fell off the desk and rolled on the ground, towards the door which was then, fourthly, kicked over by Mark’s older sister and a boy that Mark had never ever seen before but was then presented as his older sisters boyfriend. Jackson was shocked that she could ever get a boyfriend in the first place, seeing that she and Mark were identical to each other.

Finally, after his sister called them weird and closed the door, Jackson asked Mark to repeat the entire story over again, and, Mark, being the good friend that he insists he is, told him everything - and not just because he wanted to relieve the memories, obviously.

"You’ve got it _bad_ \- just know that if he asks for money it means that he’s either a drug addict or an ex drug addict having to pay off the collectors."

Mark was scandalized at the suggestion. "He is _not_ a drug addict."

Jackson cackled again and Mark thought that he had a really ugly laugh but telling him this would have gotten him even more teased and, frankly, Mark just wanted to talk about Jinyoung for the rest of the day.

Which was when his phone buzzed and it could not have been Jackson spamming him with texts, so he opened it and saw that it was from Taecyeon - he was about to block him on the spot, that was, until he read the text.

_"Bring my camera by the end of the week - TCY."_

Mark’s first thoughts was _who_ still writes their initials in phone text messages, his second thought was where in his room he left the overpriced camera and, finally, with a yelp and a scream, he realized that he had left it in the changing room of the club.

"Was gonna ask you when you’re thinking of going again - is this what you call fate?"

Mark blushed at the thought even though Jackson said it just to mock him - fate, between him and Jinyoung, Mark wondered if the camera was the lace that was going to bring them together. Perhaps Taecyeon wasn’t so bad after all if he was going to play the indirect cupido.

"Speaking of which," Mark suddenly said. "Are you hot for BamBam or what?"

"Fuck off," Jackson said, then he said it again. "Fuck right off, Tuan."

And so, fate turned it’s head around the corner once again and they heard a loud thud from the kitchen and a loud screech from Mark’s sister, seconds later Yugyeom and BamBam stormed in without permission and, again, Mark didn’t have it in him to be surprised anymore.

 

-

 

Mark didn’t want to come off as creepy.

You could say that that boat has sinked a long time ago, but Mark still waited a whole entire day before going to the stripclub. It was Monday, it was eleven a.m and Mark was surprised to see that club was reasonably lively despite the day of the week.

Even so, when Mark stepped into the lobby (because it looked like one) Jaebum visibly scowled at the sigh and Youngjae greeted him like they had been friends forever and not two strangers who got brought together by chance once.

"I forgot my camera." Mark immediately said, ignoring Jaebum and walking towards Youngjae at the other end of the bar, instead.

"You really need a better excuse to see Jinyoung."

"I was busy with classwork."

Youngjae hummed. "Sure you were."

"Jinyoung isn’t here tonight, kid," Jaebum interrupted rudely, drying his cups with more force than Mark thought was really necessary but then again, he didn’t ever do housework, so he wouldn’t know. "He stays home on Mondays."

"Actually," Youngjae said, and Jaebum scoffed before he continued. "Actually, he’ll be here but only for the private shows. You know, some bigshot took notice of our baby."

"If he actually decides to show up," Jaebum hissed. "And if he skips to study _we’ll_ be the ones dealing with angry horny and entitled rich perverts, you know?"

Youngjae shrugged. "Yeah, well. That’s the gist of it. You can wait if you want, he’s supposed to get here in twenty ten minutes."

A little bit taken back by their exchange, Mark nodded. Sure, of course he could wait ten minutes or ten hours if Jinyoung asked him. Except Mark didn’t really directly ask him to, no - Jaebum wasn’t as intimidating as he thought he was. So he sat down on the barstool regardless, wearing an oversized hoodie and a snapback minding his own business before Jaebum told him that he didn’t pay the other night.

"And you look stupid. Why pull your hoodie up when you’re wearing a snapback?"

Mark ignored him. "Can you give me another Henessey?"

Somewhere behind him, Mark thought he heared Youngjae giggle, he might have been mistaken though.

"I’ll give you some orange juice, kid."

Even so, Jaebum seemed to be all bark and no bite when it came to Mark, and made the drink regardless of what he said. Four icecubes and a quarter of alcohol which seemed like more because of the shape of the cup, colour mixing with the black of the coke.

Mark liked the taste a lot - no, he genuinely liked the taste and he wasn’t just saying it because Jinyoung said that it was his favourite drink. Mark liked it, and while thinking of all the reasons why he liked it so much while waiting for his pretty dancer to arrive, so he downed the whole drink in one go, and Jaebum looked scandalized.

"That’s the difference between a boy and a man." He said, apparently mysteriously but to Mark and Youngjae it was just funny.

“Excuse me?”

“He means that boys drink quickly and men take it slow.” Youngjae translated for the older waiter. For some reason, he never lashed out at the younger in the same way he lashed out at Jinyoung or Mark.

"That’s just," Mark said. "The pussy way of doing things."

"Oh that language!" Youngjae said dramatically, walking towards Jaebum, and kissed his cheek while holding his jaw. "Jaebum, it’s too straight for me!"

"The only straight thing about him is straight stupid." And so, with that pathetic remark and Mark opening his mouth to hit him with a (just as pathetic) retort, the door opened wide and Mark could swear that it was night time when the sun walked in blinding him on the spot.

Jinyoung strutted through the lobby, with an oversized black shirt and hair looking fluffier than ever - his eye-make up gorgeously painted on while his skinny jeans had rips in them all the way up to his thighs and his creepers looked brand new. That was, in Mark’s eyes, he looked stunning.

"Just rolled out of bed?" Jaebum said, voice suddenly softer than before.

"Naw," Jinyoung said, purring. No, he literally purred when it was supposed to be a yawn. "Was working on an essay n’ forgot I had dick to suck for tonight."

Only then did he realize that Mark was sat there, hoodie pulled up and snapback covering the view to his face, Jinyoung smacked his lips. Jinyoung did not like the situation one bit - no, he loved the attention and affection, but somehow, for some reason, he didn’t have it in him to take advantage of Mark like he would have done with any other person.

That thought unsettled him the most and, so, he couldn’t rely on his confident and outrageously sexy side to act out for him. Instead, he greeted Mark with a wave and a smile, he looked at him for a good few seconds.

"Good evening, Jinyoung." Mark barely whispered out.

Youngjae was laughing behind the bottles he was cleaning up, but none of the three noticed that.

Jinyoung thought about it, more than he thought about any person who had ever stepped in the club and he made a decision. It was around the time he took out the vaseline out of his bag and placed it on the counter when he thought of it.

No, Jinyoung told himself, looking at Mark who looked youthful and exactly like the type of boy he absolutely hated in his highschool days - Mark was a fuckboy, and Jinyoung was not going to make exceptions for someone like that.

With his mind set up, Jinyoung sat on the barstool next to Mark and pursed his lips towards the younger boy - Mark, breath caughed in throat and all, looked at him confused.

"My lips need to be moisturized - for best dick sucking results, you know?"

On the contrary of what he might have thought, Mark did not run away no matter how many times he alluded to his side job of prostitution, but instead nodded awkwardly, bit his lip and dipped his finger in the vaseline, then applying it to Jinyoung’s lips - softly, taking in the soft texture of it, taking in the exact shade of pink he decided was his favourite from then on forward.

Jinyoung smacked his lips, smiling. "Thanks - will you wait for me tonight?"

"Do you want me to?" Mark answered, forgetting where he was and who he was around.

Jinyoung covered his mouth when he laughed whole-heartedly, so hard and loud even Jaebum and Youngjae looked at each other as if they realized something that Mark had not - Jinyoung laughed, and then he laughed harder.

Mark was a sweet boy, Jinyoung thought.

"Yes, I want you to wait for me."

Mark felt the weight of a thousand caterpillars turning into butterflies in the pit of his stomach and he wasn’t sure if he was going sick or falling in love, but he figured that it could have been both at the same time. So he remembered how to breath, looked at Jinyoung’s thighs instead of his eyes.

"Then," He said. "I’ll wait for you."

And just like that, a bell rang and Jinyoung looked up to Jaebum who sighed out loud, pointing towards the door that Mark had not noticed before, and Jinyoung nodded, kissing Jaebum’s cheek, and then kissing Youngjae’s cheek aswell.

"Remember what I sai-"

"Yeah dad," Jinyoung said. "Yell if something happens, use protection, don’t do anything I’m uncomfortable with - got it."

 

-

 

Jazz music played softly during the time that Jinyoung was gone - and, to Mark’s surprise, Jaebum did not try to pick a fight with him anymore. They all stayed quiet, with Jaebum washing a seemingly endless amount of glasses and Youngjae humming to the music, brooming the lobby and cleaning the small tables over and over again.

Mark did not know that whenever Jinyoung went into his room by himself, it was a habit for the other two to stay quiet, with a not choking but still lightly noticeable tension rooming through the dark lobby as if they were ready to jump at any indication of Jinyoung being in danger.

And they could heard them - they could hear the man grunting and telling Jinyoung in what position he wanted him, they could sometimes hear Jinyoung mewling, too, and whether it was overracting or it was genuine, either way it made Mark sad when he had no right to feel that way.

He wondered if Jaebum and Youngjae felt that way, too. He noticed how protective Jaebum was of him, and whether or not Youngjae dropped the glass on the floor was because of the noises or because of his own clumsiness, Mark was not sure. Either way, he knew that the time felt eternal, closing his legs and trying to block out the noises at the same time he was trying to drink them the best he could.

He didn’t think of Jinyoung sexually - ironically enough, and when he closed his legs it was not because he felt a rush of hormones that made him want to break open the door and take Jinyoung in the other mans stead, but instead he closed his legs because he felt flustered, almost shy at the concept of sex.

Just like that, with a final grunt from the other side of the wall, Jinyoung walked out covering his mouth and without saying anything to any of them, he walked towards the bathroom and gargled the water a couple of times.

"Yeah," Jinyoung said, drying his chin with the towel behind the counter. "You have to probably kick him out - he kind of fell asleep."

And so, Jaebum grunted and walked in the room.

Meanwhile, Jinyoung drank a whole glass of water and smiled at Mark - it was different from before, it was a little bit more vulnerable and shy.

"Scared you off?" He did his best to sound casual.

And so, Mark, just as casual, responded with, "No, why should I?"

"I sleep with men for money, don’t you find that gross?"

Mark did not understand him at all. "Of course not," He said. "It’s a job like any other - as long as you’re okay."

Youngjae smiled.

So did Jinyoung.

"That," He said. "Means a lot."

The ’thank you’ was silent.

 

* * *

**AN Guess who’s back back again**

**This chapter is super short and not a lot happens bc im trying to get the fluffy lighthearted feel of the fic back after writing angst after angst lmao so the next updates will be like 5-6 k each and i dont usually do this but i kind of want to know what you guys want to see happen ? fluffy? get angsty? love triangles? no love triangles? emphasis on the smut? no smut at all?**

**Either way, thanks for reading and sorry for the long wait but I’m on this again ay**

 


	5. Chapter Four.

_"Being broke did not mean the same to everyone."_

 

-

 

Mark always had an infatuation for people who could dance.

He guesses that it began in his childhood when he broke the _Snow White_   1994, fifteen dollar VHS tape from all the times that he had watched it on repeat, over and over and over again, and tired out the tape belts back when he lived in one room apartment in South America with his parents and siblings which wasn’t as hot as everybody assumed it was and the videotapes were a lot cheaper than they were in the States. Mark has fond memories of the place.

(Or, that’s the version he told his father - Mark never admitted that he made out with the video cover because he thought that _Snow White_ was very pretty and his six year old body was reacting alone and, frankly, Mark is not sure how he didn’t get sick from all the germs and dust he licked off of it, but he’d digress)

Mark also remembers his first girlfriend who had won fake gold medals at their schools _extremely_ important, _very_ relevant dance competition for modern ballet and Mark asked her out over a bag of onion lay chips without knowing her name or what grade she was in or whether or not she liked the videogames that he liked (there could be a problem if she didn’t) - but he loved her wgeb she danced in a tutu and thought that she looked like the fairies he saw when his sister was watching television and he didn’t know why, but he liked that a lot.

(in retrospect, they were eight years old and lasted a whole 48 hours before she kissed another boys cheek during recess and Mark was heartbroken but had forgotten all about it when his father bought him ice-cream from the dollar store and played _Call of Duty_ on his PlayStation 2 for the rest of the day)

Moreover, Mark never really stopped to think about any of this before Jackson (being the much needed enlightening Jesus figure in his life, apparently) pointed it out to him on a Sunday afternoon when they were sixteen years old and sitting by the swings in the park near the aforementioned dollar store, right after Mark got rejected by the girl who had the curviest hips in their grade and quit school to become a background dancer for Beyoncé, or something.

So Mark being infatuated with Jinyoung’s absolute everything made sense to Jackson - from what he could gather from Mark’s lively stories about him, Jinyoung had a feminine charm and knew how to move with grace and class and Mark might have been a hopeless fuckboy, but he was a sucker for dancers either way.

(This was the point where Mark stopped thinking about it because his head was starting to hurt and Mark didn’t like getting headaches. He concluded that Jinyoung was by far the most sensual person he had crushed on yet.)

(Jackson still didn’t know what Jinyoung looked like, but he agreed.)

 

-

 

Mark had waited for him after work, and Jinyoung was flattered.

He even blushed when they walked side-to-side, shoulder-to-shoulder next to each other, both their hands trembling with nervous anticipation and mutual gratefulness for having the other in their otherwise monochrome lives. _Finally someone had seen him for more than a sex worker!_ He thought, and he’d awkwardly tell Mark that he didn’t have to force himself to walk him home, and then Mark would turn around and sweep Jinyoung off his metaphorical heels, transforming the ugly parking lot into their kingdom and they’d passionately kiss and three kids would pop out of thin air - no job but somehow still rich and eating good.

Or that’s what Jinyoung imagined Mark was thinking when they walked out of the warm club into the cold of the night which cut off all circulation to his fingers. It was all fiction stuff, he thought, coming to terms with your feelings and suddenly you’re the protagonist of the world and all.

Moreover, Jinyoung didn’t need anybody to feel pity for him or think so highly of themselves that they could save the poor, _depressed_ prostitute from the horrible, terrible streets of California where people like him got shot and murdered and forgotten. He giggled at the thought of it.

Because the reality was that the reality wasn’t nearly as dramatic. Sure he had his fair share of bad experiences (he’d argue that, maybe, more than the average person - but nothing he could not handle on his own) and got judged based on what he did for a living all the time, but not enough to leave a noticeable dent in his sense of self worth. Not really - _that_ , or Jinyoung had been doing it for so long that it melted into a part of his identity.

It might be the latter.

Either way, Jinyoung spat on the sidewalk instead of all of that, walking two steps in front of Mark and then deadpanned, looking straight into Mark’s eyes -

"I think I got some of his cum stuck between my teeth."

Mark looked visibly shaken at his words and Jinyoung thought that the way his face contorted from surprise to timidity to stressed was really funny so he laughed  really loud and obnoxiously while he watched Mark squirm and blush like a little schoolboy. Part of him just got a kick out of seeing how shy he could get the younger boy.

Which was when his stomach grumbled - and oh, Jinyoung cursed his backstabbing hunger.

"Are you hungry?" Mark asked, all signs of shyness from before completely vanished in a blink of the eye, and he sped his step up to stand next to Jinyoung - who could frankly not believe that his stomach had betrayed him like that.

He really badly wanted to give him another colourful and vulgar response (something like ’no, I just ate dick’ would work) but instead, when he looked at Mark while opening his mouth, looking concerned and gentle in his fratboy gear of snapback and a hoodie, he instead said -

"Y-yeah, I haven’t eating all day."

He mentally slapped himself before Mark had stopped walking, indirectly making Jinyoung stop walking as well, and then Mark said -

"You need to eat if you’re gonna work so hard."

If anybody else in the whole entire world had said it Jinyoung would be sure that they were being mean-spirited and making fun of him, taking jabs at his easy work. Coming from Mark, however, Jinyoung couldn’t tell whether he was being sarcastic or not. Unfortunately for him, he seemed completely sincere and concerned. Mark was gradually becoming the most difficult person for Jinyoung to decipher and it took him way out of his comfort zone. He wasn’t sure if he liked it or not.

"I was working on uni stuff," Jinyoung explained, avoiding Mark’s eyes. "Don’t think I’m starving myself or somethin’."

"I don’t." Mark said earnestly.

"Good." And with that said Jinyoung continued walking, when, not five seconds later the smell from the Chinese snackbar kitchen reached the both of them, and they automatically salivated at the thoughts of spring rolls dripping in sauce and grease as it spilled on the carton box, crunchy and so full of vegetables that it fell on their chins and the table.

Jinyoung’s stomach grumbled for a second time.

Mark heard it again.

"I’ll buy you something."

Jinyoung looked at his shoes, his own boots clean and maintained while Mark’s sneakers looked worn out and dirty. He was sure that he could get an analogy out of that, but didn’t feel like thinking to much and sighed instead. Mark was making it increasingly harder for Jinyoung to treat him like a client and not a friend.

He wondered if there was any harm in truly befriending the younger boy - asked himself if he would still think this way if he was older and less attractive than Mark was. Realistically, he wouldn’t have ever given him the time of day. There was his answer.

"I won’t hold back, kid." He finally said.

"Give it all you got!" Mark beamed, all his beautiful teeth showing and his eyes turning into little creases from how hard he was smiling not knowing how hard Jinyoung was going to blow his money out of his pocket. Really, Jinyoung had experienced a lot of things in his life, but experiencing something like Mark was a new one.

 

-

 

"Wow," Mark said. "You sure ordered a lot."

It was the first sentence that Mark said which gave Jinyoung a glimpse of how he would treat others under normal circumstance.

"Told ya." Jinyoung said, opening his first box of twelve spring rolls and another one of noodles with a lot of vegetables and three different types of meat. He wasn’t sure how much money Mark spent on him, but he did know that Mark only ordered a small box of three.

They were sat inside, in a comfortable warmth contrasting with the cold of outside. If Jinyoung had to give the moments colours, then that moment was an orange that made him feel at home - like he was in his own living room.

"Jaebum and I used to go here all the time when we were in highschool." Jinyoung confessed off-handedly, shoving half the box of noodles in his mouth impressively.

"Really?" Mark perked up. "Did you go after school?"

Jinyoung couldn’t help but smile with his mouth full and with soy sauce on his cheek, so much food in his mouth he could barely swallow it all. He didn’t think that anybody would look so interested in his highschool stories, but there was Mark - a walking contradiction of everything Jinyoung thought he knew of life.

But neither of them knew that yet.

Which was why Jinyoung cringed a little at what he had said, then got unreasonably annoyed when he saw how genuinely happy Mark looked that he was actually _talking_ to him rather than _answering_ him.

"Uh," He stabbed the fourth spring roll lazily. "Yeah. Though I was broke as all shit so he always paid for me."

Mark giggled at this and Jinyoung knew that it was because being broke had different meanings for different people and his and Mark’s definition definitely did not coincide in value - no, Mark thought that being broke was having dinner every night and having rent paid every month but only have two dollars to spend on late night snacks. Jinyoung could not relate to that.

"So you’ve been friends for long?"

Jinyoung felt a little bashful. "You could say that."

"That’s nice." Mark said satisfied, and then he put his chopsticks down on an empty carton box and Jinyoung slowly put his own out of his mouth.

"Ya’ hungry?" He asked.

Mark shook his head agressively. "No - it’s okay, eat up."

"Don’t be stupid," Jinyoung said, and put a couple of spring rolls on Mark’s plate and then half of his second box of noodles, making sure to add most of the meat. "You have to look out for yourself."

But when Jinyoung looked up after taking a bit from what was left of his box, he looked up to Mark who was blushing wildly and was covering his hands with his sweater and correcting the position of his snapback.

"Saw a ghost?" Jinyoung asked.

"No-" Mark said, not looking at Jinyoung but poking in his food with his chopsticks instead. "It’s just - you’re too cute when you’re being nice."

That was when Jinyoung laughed, and he laughed hard and loud and it past midnight and it was too early for drunk partygoers to be there, yet too late for anybody else but them and the people who worked at the place. Even so, it wouldn’t surprise them if the plates and tables turned around to look at the source of the boisterous laugther.

"Don’t get used to it." He said, and sincerely smiled at him for the first time - not as Jinyoung the seductive, playful stripper,

but as Jinyoung,

the person.

 

-

 

They reached Jinyoung’s place an hour later. When Jinyoung turned around to tell him that they arrived (Mark didn’t understand why he told him that when he should have known that Mark knew) there was a sweet tension in the air which almost brought cavities to their teeth and frankly, Jinyoung needed them.

Which was why Jinyoung balanced up and down on his toes, his hands behind his back and, without thinking much of it, leaned in to kiss Mark on the cheek.

"That’s for the food." He explained, smiling.

And again, before Mark could mutter, stutter and force something, _anything_ out of his mouth, the heavy door was already shut in his face and the hallway lights were turned on - Mark only snapped awake when the elevator was closing and if he was asked whether he imagined it or not, Mark wouldn’t know how to answer you.

 

-

 

Would it sound too cartoon-ish to say that Mark spooked around his house for the first twenty four hours after the kiss, looking approximately twenty percent paler and fifty percent more like a ghost? It doesn’t really matter, because the situation was comical in and of itself - you know, a nineteen year old getting shy because of a cheek on the kiss and all.

It started when he woke up at half past two in the afternoon and his father snatched the pillow away from under his head, telling him that he was off for work and left money on the table for him and his sister to order take out for themselves. Mark barely heard him (who would - he argued later, it was too early for him to function) and instead put the money in his own pocket.

To later blow on food and beer when his possé picked him up to hang out at the skatepark, and Mark barely felt himself move to take off and then put on his clothes, forgetting to tell his sister that he was leaving and without knowing it, leaving her to starve for the rest of the night. He didn’t say anything on their way to the park, and BamBam and Yugyeom did not care enough to ask him about it, thinking that Mark was just being his usual weird self again.

"Jackson -" Mark said much later at the skatepark while BamBam and Yugyeom were doing tricks on their bikes. " _Jackson_."

Jackson looked at him, throwing another can of beer in the bin a couple of meters away from them - it was six pm and the colours of the sky were shades of pink and Jackson always said that it was his favourite colour.

"Wow, the ghost spoke." Jackson said excitedly.

"Jackson," Mark repeated, shaking Jackson’s shoulders. "He did _that_ to me yesterday."

"No way," Jackson covered his mouth, and then whispered so the others couldn’t hear. "You fucked?"

"No!" Mark was having the meltdown of the century and there was his bestfriend making fun of his misery. "That - he kissed my _cheek_."

Then Jackson laughed really loud and when BamBam asked them what was so funny, Jackson said that he had to lift his pants up because he was flashing the entire city - this was not true, because BamBam’s belt was well fit around his waist, but he liked his reaction.

 

-

 

"Mornin’ sunshine." Jinyoung yawned, walking into their tiny kitchen which also had a washer and a drier and a whole bunch of house flowers they put by the windows to make it look prettier - he sat on Jaebum’s lap, who for some reason was already in his jeans and the belt was poking his bare thighs, Jaebum wiggling his right arm to make room for Jinyoung, to then put it down to hold the newspaper he was reading, trapping the younger between his arms.

"There has been a raccoon infestation going ’round." Jaebum informed him, taking a sip of his coffee while Jinyoung nosed his chest.

"Why are you all dressed up this early in the morning?"

Jaebum grinned. "It’s ten a.m," He said, but knew that wouldn’t satisfy the needy boy on his lap who was always more affectionate during the morning. "Youngjae wanted to go on a date."

Jinyoung perked up at this, straddling Jaebum in nothing but his briefs and an oversized shirt, putting his arm around his neck blocking his entire view from the very interesting article about raccoon stats in California he was reading.

"Take me with you!"

"It’s a _date_." Jaebum points out, and Jinyoung burst out in giggles, shimmying off his lap and taking out the milk out of the refrigerator instead.

"I was joking," He said, and Jaebum sighed relieved. "Unless you don’t _want_ it to be." And then Jaebum was stressed again when Jinyoung winked at him, fixing himself up a bowl of cereal and syrup and asked Jaebum where they were going.

"The aquarium - he wants to see the penguins." Jaebum said.

"And then you want to tell me that you aren’t hopelessly in love."

"We’re just seeing how things go." Jaebum said shyly, sipping up the remainder of his coffee cup which was more sugar than it was coffee and Jinyoung thought that this was a very contradicting fact of Im Jaebum.

"Yeah right."

"Yeah," Jaebum repeated. " _Right_ , you said it," Then he checked his phone and jumped up immediately. "By the way, I’m not letting that kid in the club anymore."

Jinyoung simply looked up from his bowl, frowning and Jaebum frowned back.

"You don’t want people catching feelings for you on the job don’t you?" Jaebum then explained, saying that it was Jinyoung who told him to look out for people who stuck around a little too lonng in the first place.

"Yeah but," Jinyoung wasn’t sure why he was defending the younger boy. "Mark isn’t really my _client_ \- he just got there by accident."

"Jinyoung," Jaebum warned, crossing his arms. "Don’t tell me you’re interested in the kid - he’s not supposed to be allowed in there in the first place and you know that."

"C’mon, he’s _basically_ twenty one. As if you didn’t spend your childhood going from stripclub to stripclub with your daddy."

"I’m not even going to respond to that." Jaebum sighed and impulsed his leg off the wall, collecting his wallet and phone on the table, but Jinyoung was faster and Jaebum’s hand ended on of JInyoung’s, which was on top of his phone.

"If he becomes a client you won’t kick him out, right?"

"Don’t do stupid shit," Jaebum said, snatching phone out of his hands. "He’s just crushing on you because he’s never seen somebody like you."

"I can rile him up a little - just wait till he begs me to take all his money."

"He won’t," Jaebum insisted. "You’re too good and untouchable to him."

"Is that a dare?"

"Will you stop it if I say no?"

Of course he wouldn't. Jinyoung had a plan, and although he had no trace of malice in his entire body to be found and although he lived happily, Mark, just like anybody else would feel, weirdened him out. Not because he disliked him, but because it was odd to find somebody so fascinated with you out of nowhere - and that was coming from a stripper.

No, Jinyoung had a plan, and whether it was an excuse to spend more time and discover Mark little by little or not, well, Jinyoung wasn't asked, so Jinyoung wasn't going to answer.

Which was why he kissed Jaebum's cheek by the door when he left for his date, and made the effort to clean the entire apartment before going back on his assignment and thinking about all the reactions he could get out of Mark.

 

-

 

"Maybe he needs somebody who loves him blindly," Youngjae argued one aquarium visit, two hot dogs and three sneezes later. "It's probably the kid who's gonna have a bad time."

They were holding hands, walking through the park after their long date, their feet aching and hurting but it didn't matter to either of them, because they got energy simply from being with each other, feeling each other's warmth and having Jaebum carefully trace over his fingers with his own on their walk - both wearing thick jackets and Jaebum having wrapped his scarf around Youngjae's neck in a way that you couldn't see his mouth or nose anymore.

"This is all so weird." Jaebum said.

"You know - coming from you, that doesn't say a lot," Youngjae giggled. "It's fate! what if this was meant to happen, you know? like a next step in our Jinyoungie's life?"

"Do you think some fuckboy is going to appreciate and support Jinyoung's job in the long run? What if Jinyoung does fall in love and Mark lets him down?"

"That really won't happen." Youngjae assured and, for some reason, it made Jaebum feel that everything between them was going to be alright. Which was exactly when they heard really loud laugther coming from the right side and, when the looked to see what the fuss was about, they saw a skinny boy flat on his face and a skateboard rolling towards them.

"BamBam you're a _fuckin'_ disaster." Yugyeom yelled, and Mark and Jackson tripped over themselves running towards BamBam in laugther, not to check if he was okay but to make fun of him some more because they were bestfriends and that's what bestfriends do.

"Speak of the devil," Youngjae looked up to Jaebum, who stopped the skateboard with his foot, and then Youngjae yelled. "Hi Mark!"

It took Mark a couple of seconds to realize who it was, and then he ran over to them together with Jackson to collect their skateboard.

"Sorry, BamBam can't skate for his life - Uh, how's Jinyoung?"

"None of your business." Jaebum said, but Youngjae cut him off.

"At home! Will you be seeing us tonight?"

"Can I?" Mark asked - like they were talking about their apartments and not an actual strip club. "Did Jinyoung say anything?"

"Why would he?" Jaebum spat again and, for a second time, Youngjae spoke over him.

"Don't you have school today?" Youngjae asked.

"Actually - " Mark thought quickly, thinking up of a quick excuse. " - I had to talk about that, I'd like more footage of him for my project."

"Oh," Youngjae smiled. "I'm sure that's no problem - anyways, Jaebum and I are continuing our little date now, see ya." And with that, Youngjae swung his arm and because of that, also swung Jaebum's, who suddenly got shy before he could say anything more at Mark and, just like that, they were gone.

Leaving Jackson to stare at Mark, and Mark telling him not to ask.

"Oh, I'll be late for my job." 

 

* * *

 

**AN ok so this story has been progressing super slow but shit is about to get real in the next chapter so i hope you’re all ready lol i hope this comforts you a little during the elections also tell me what you think !!!!! thanks for reading !**

 


	6. Chapter Five.

Jinyoung spent the rest of his day doing five things.

One of them was watching all of his favourite Quentin Tarantino movies in a marathon, and the second was wearing nothing but his sweatpants because he was home alone and Jaebum was not there to tell him to put a shirt on and act like a stressed out parent. He watched _Kill Bill, Jackie Brown_ and, of course _Pulp Fiction_. The third thing he did was fall in love with Uma Thurman all over again, and he kind of missed his room in his parents apartment where he had a huge Kill Bill poster on his door.

The fourth thing he did was make a whole lot of popcorn and melt half a block of butter and syrup on it - naturally, he finished all of it and, the fifth thing he did was order pizza from the local pizzeria for him and Jaebum when he came home.

When he finished  _Pulp Fiction_ it was around seven thirty and Jaebum still hadn't gotten home from his date. Jinyoung wondered if he was going to stay over at Youngjae's place, which was a whole train stop away from where they lived.

 _Hm._ Jinyoung thought about it, crossing his legs on the couch and debating whether or not to watch another movie. Youngjae was a weird kid, he figured, who studied to work with animals and had three bunnies, four hamsters and two cats sneaked in his apartment - he had been working with them for a year and initially Jinyoung thought that he was going to give up.

Funnily enough, out of the three of them, Youngjae was the one who had the most bite in his words and wouldn't let go of something when he made up his mind on it. Jinyoung liked him a lot, and it was around the third month when Jaebum warmed up to him when Jinyoung knew that Jaebum liked him, too.

Which was exactly when his doorbell rang, and that always made him jump out of his skin especially when he was home alone. So he quickly put on a sweater, turned down the volume of the television and walked towards the door, opening it.

"Pizza delivery." The person said, smiling too bright for someone who delivered pizza as a job, but Jinyoung would digress.

"Oh, yeah, I'm Jinyoung." Jinyoung said, and something lit up in the blonde boy's eyes. He was short and tan and Jinyoung couldn't see right through him, but he could see that he had a good figure.

"Oh, but this says it's for Im Jaebum though?" He said. "I'm Jackson, I answered the call."

"He's my roommate," Jinyoung explained, reaching for his pocket. "We order here all the time - is this your first day or something?"

"Correct!" Jackson beamed, and kind of waited for Jinyoung to give him the money but Jinyoung was kind of standing around and realizing that he had left it on the counter in the kitchen. He sighed.

"Um, I'll be right back."

And he was, handing the pizza delivery boy his money.

Jackson looked up to Jinyoung. "Are you sure you want to give me a five dollar tip?"

"I don't have change." Jinyoung explained, and Jackson took the answer because he wasn't about to say no to an extra five dollars to his minninum wage, thanking Jinyoung without knowing who he was really talking to, he walked out of the apartment and just missed Jaebum and Youngjae when they got into the elevator.

It wasn't until he was outside and took in the fresh air in his lungs when he realized,

_"Wasn't that Mark's Jinyoung?"_

 

-

 

"What's in that bag over there?" Jinyoung asked, hanging over the counter while Mark fiddled around with the camera, taking random shots around the bar and, finally, his hands eyes and focus was set on Park Jinyoung - he focused on his lips when he asked, pressed pause.

"It's food," Mark explained, pressed record and moved up to Jinyoung's eyes, noticing the way they crinkled and how he had blended the eyeliner he was wearing so that it wouldn't be, in his words, too cheap or showy.

Mark thought that he looked gorgeous. He was gorgeous, and a couple of minutes before that when he asked if he could film him for his fake school project, Jinyoung happily obliged.

"Just make me look pretty."

That was his only rule and Mark assured him that he'd be the prettiest person anyone had ever seen.

His lense stayed in focus when Jinyoung leaned over the grab the bag, gasping when he took out all the food that Mark had bought him, his collarbones and neck being filmed - Mark was sitting down, but if he was standing up he knew that he'd have to take a couple of steps back when the scent of Jinyoung's cologne made him dizzy.

"I can get used to this." Jinyoung declared mischievously when he sat down on the barstool behind the counter again, resting with his head on his palm and looking straight into the camera, indirectly looking straight into Mark's eyes.

He didn't know how a camera could make the mood so erotic, nor had Mark ever had any interest in film before this day - but at that moment, he was enchanted, and was sure that any footage of Jinyoung would be enough to make a wonderful sequence of pictures worthy of awards.

"You need the energy, don't you?"

Jinyoung nodded, already taking out the spring rolls and broke the first one in half - something in him had changed, and Mark was too naive and stupid to think that there was something behind it all.

"Yes - will you watch me tonight?"

When he stretched out his arm with half the spring roll for Mark to eat, he leaned in took the bite, accidentally tasting Jinyoung's fingers, and Jinyoung not so accidentally feathering with his thumb over Mark's bottom lip.

"You will, won't you?"

Mark gulped.

Then he nodded.

Then he pressed pause.

 

-

 

The colour of lightning could do wonderful things to a scene and, in that moment, the scene was blossoming in red and blues blended into each other, the club lights dim so everybody looked more handsome and pretty than they did in daylight. Mark remembers how Jackson said it was a tactic to keep people interested but, at the moment, while Mark was filming the ceiling while the people started pouring in for the midnight show, he was enraputed with the power of colour.

He briefly wondered if Taecyeon felt as passionate about film as Mark felt in that short moment, and thought that maybe he had underestimated him and calling him nothing but a show-off with a big ego.

These thoughts occupied his mind until, suddenly, the room was full and music switched up - going from dirty trap music to slow and sensual rnb. Mark was sitting all the way behind so people wouldn't know that he was filming, until the lights turned off.

And the stage lit up - Jinyoung and the same boys from the last night walking on stage, Jinyoung gracing everyone with booty shorts and a regular black shirt that Mark thought was completely inappropriate for a stripper and much more appropriate for a college student in his room, but the crowd went crazy regardless.

And, frankly, with the eyeliner and light lipstick on, so did Mark.

But Mark fell apart in silence, just like he did everything else in his life. Except that he now had a camera in his hands to document it all - and he did. He focused on the faces of different men, and how everybody looked at Jinyoung and nobody looked at the other boys. He focused on how they held their thighs in self-restraint, and focused on how company groups were high fiving each other as if they had just hit the lottery.

Mark felt something like pride well up in his chest when he remembered that it was Jinyoung who made them loose control that way, that it was Jinyoung who was beautiful enough to turn them stupid. It was Jinyoung who could work his magic like that, and it was Jinyoung who dressed casual and went off stage and collected his money without barely touching anyone that night.

The funniest part was that the men looked completely satisfied when Jinyoung picked the bills out of their backpockets - like all their hours of hardwork was worth it for that moment.

It was Jinyoung who stood so high and graceful doing a job that others would call bottom of the barrel, lazy and promiscuous. It was Jinyoung who could do that without breaking down - it was Jinyoung who did that.

And Mark was so proud.

 

-

 

"I couldn't find my clothes," Mark heared Jinyoung explain on his way to the dressing room. "So I just took out the clothes I had in the locker."

He heard Jaebum sigh and Youngjae laugh.

"Well it was a crazy success - five guys went up to us immediately afterwards begging us to tell them what other services we offer," Youngjae said. "You're making bank tonight, honey."

It was then when Mark made his presence known, not feeling like sneaking up on people that night because it would make him feel like was doing something bad - Jinyoung and Youngjae looked at him, Jaebum almost looked sad for him. Mark didn't understand why.

"But five people is so many!" Jinyoung complained. "I wanna be able to sit for the rest of the week!"

"Stop moaning," Jaebum said. "You wanted to do this in the first place - you can't bail everytime you don't feel like it, Jinyoung."

"But there's a _Stranger Things_ re-run on tonight!" Jinyoung continued. "Can't you schedule them throughout the rest of the week?"

Jaebum sighed, brushing his hair with his hands and looked at Youngjae as if he were his last resort and Mark briefly remembered when they were holding hands in the park that same day.

"Jinyoungie," Youngjae started, patting his notebook. "We can cancel them all if that's what you really want, but you've been doing it a lot lately and it's bad for business," He nodded towards Jaebum, who sat down. "Jaebum is trying to tell you that if you don't want to do it then don't do it at all."

"Yeah but not five people I don't!"

For a second time, Youngjae sighed.

"Then be clear with us Jinyoungie - this is for your safety as well," Mark felt like it was more about his safety than it was for anything else, but he stayed quiet. "As in, you know how clients can get - we don't want them to get offended and take it out on you."

"You know, remember what happened when you rejected that elite uni kid because he wasn't up to your standards?"

Mark's ears perked at this, sitting closer to Jinyoung who was spinning on his make-up chair childlishly, looking devilishly adorable in his get-up and make-up and his hair all fluffy and messy. Like he had just rolled out of bed.

"Fine," Jinyoung gave in. "I can do three. Send the other two to the other boys."

"Pretty sure they want _you_ , not the-"

"Then sell 'em!" Jinyoung yelled at Jaebum, who looked surprised at his outburt. "Isn't that your part of the job? Hasn't your daddy taught you how to do that?"

Jaebum could've pushed him off the chair at that exact moment, but instead he clenched his fists and counted till ten, reminding himself that it wasn't just anyone he was talking to, but he was talking to Park Jinyoung. With that, he kindly smiled at him, voice controlled.

"I'm not even going to bother answering that," He said. "But sure, go ahead, do whatever you want just like you've always done. I'll pick you up when they hurt you, yeah?"

And with that, before his words could sink in and before Jinyoung had the chance to grab his wrist and apologize for what he had said, Jaebum had smashed the door closed behind them, bumping shoulders with Mark on the way out, and Mark was about to throw all kinds of insults at him before he realized Youngjae was there.

"You need to stop being so mean to him." Youngjae told Jinyoung, who pouted in response.

"He's _your_ boyfriend, tell him to get off my back."

"You're throwing a fit over nothin', Jinyoungie."

Jinyoung looked at the floor, and, Youngjae having realized that talking to him was not going to help at all, sighed and turned to Mark, nodding at him without the warmth that he got used to from the boy and without saying anything, he left the dressing room as well.

"Don't look at me like that." Jinyoung said, rubbing his eyes and letting his accent slip out, sounding more aunthentic than ever.

"I'm not." Mark said.

"Why are you nice to me?" Jinyoung asked, but Mark didn't think that he was actually waiting for an answer, so he quietly sat down next to him, playing nervously with his camera for what seemed like an eternity with Jinyoung's sniffles being the background music to the otherwise eery silence of the packed dressing room.

"Did you get good footage?" Jinyoung asked.

"Eh?" Mark wasn't sure what he was talking about.

"For school - your project."

"Oh," Mark remembered, suddenly feeling his cheeks glow. "Yeah, real good. You look stunning in every shot, you should have seen the way they looked at you - it was amazing, you're amazing."

Jinyoung giggled at this, covering his mouth with his hands and Mark thought that it was the most adorable thing that he had ever seen, suddenly feeling warm in his oversized hoodie.

"I can give you something even more amazing, if you want."

"Like what?" Mark perked up, looking at Jinyoung, who looked back at him.

"Would you trust your camera with for the next hour, Mark?"

He didn't even have to ask.

Even so, Mark felt something funny in the pit of his stomach, and he wasn't a very eloquent person, so he didn't know how to describe what it felt like. But he wasn't asked, so he wasn't going to try.

 

-

 

Put the camera on table next to them and cover it with clothing so only the lens was visible and had a clean shot of the scene - Jinyoung did not bother to check from all angles to make sure that his client could not see it, because he knew that he was going to come in like a raging animal, anyways.

So he turned the camera on and went on his knees on the floor, looking into the lens and slowly taking off the cardigan he had put on right before it. Then, he stuck his tongue out and gracefully jumped up on his toes when the bell rang.

"Hey gorgeous." The man said, and normally Jinyoung would hope that he wasn't expecting any conversation with Jinyoung, because he was not up for it, but then he really wanted to put up a show for Mark's little classroom project, so he smiled coyly and asked him what was on his mind.

"Business problems," The man said while taking off his shirt, and Jinyoung crossed his legs and blinked dumbly on purpose. "Don't worry sweetheart, I don't expect you to understand. I make a lot of money, you know."

"I'm sure - you look so manly." Jinyoung knew that he was in the corner of the shot and that the man could not be seen yet - that was, until he walked over to the bed in the small room and everything from the neck down to his ankles were visible.

Jinyoung, sitting down, looked up to the man with his crotch really close to his face - as it was his first time and he didn't know what to do. Jinyoung's intuition told him that this man got off on getting his ego stroked, so he focused on that.

"Now let's put you to work."

Which was when Jinyoung put his hands on the mans belt, grabbing it put not taking it off yet, and the man who seemed to be in his thirties stroked Jinyoung's hair, letting out a long breath when Jinyoung mouthed against his crotch until he got his hair pulled and the man thrusted forwards. Jinyoung looked up, innoncent.

"Try a little harder, sweetheart."

Jinyoung almost gagged at the petname, but shrugged his feelings aside when he felt the mans hand pull on his hair again, and then he took off his belt and let his jeans fall to his knees, black Calvin Klein briefs in full display, and Jinyoung had definitely seen worse bodies in his days. He couldn't complain and, so, moaned when he mouthed against the man again, kissing his clothed lenghts and grabbing his thighs - the man appreciated it more the second time around, and finally Jinyoung lowered the briefs as well.

When he pulled away for a second to reach the condoms, the man slapped his hand away.

"It's just oral."

Jinyoung sassed back. "I'm not just any whore you pick up on the streets, sir."

The sir was ironic but it felt like the man was immune to that, because he shut up and let Jinyoung open the wrapper with his teeth and rolled it over the mans lenght - finally satisfied, he kissed the head and sucked down with his hand holding what his throat could not reach yet.

Which is to say, Jinyoung did not brag about a lot of things, but having arguably the best blowjob skills in all of the state of California was one of the few things that he did know he had. And so, with moaning and his hair pulled down and eventually deepthroat the guy without ever moving his butt from the bed while the man was stood up, Jinyoung made a man well in his thirties come in less than ten minutes with just a blowjob.

It wasn't his intention, really, he only gave it seventy percent of what he had and he was supposed to stretch it out and ask his clients if they wanted extra services in their most vulnerable moment - the man had the impotence of a thirteen year old, Jinyoung figured.

"Come visit me again." Jinyoung said while the man pulled his pants up, looking disheveled.

"Can you put my belt on for me?" He asked, and it certainly caught Jinyoung by surprise.

"Sorry?"

The man pointed at his crotch, and never having been in a situation like that, Jinyoung blushed uncertainly and asked himself what he had done for all these things that he didn't understand to come crashing down around him all at once. He was supposed to leave right after the blowjob, after all.

"Uh," Jinyoung put his hands on his belt. "Sure."

"Thank you, sweetheart." And so, he brushed his hair with his fingers and then went down to his cheeks and neck like he were a cat and not a person. Frankly, Jinyoung was starting to feel uncomfortable with the unwanted affection which felt more like the man was making up for something to himself.

Just like that, the man left, and when he closed the door, Jinyoung had already forgotten his nameless face. It was work ethic, it was rotation, and he had two more people waiting for him after this one.

But one was enough for Mark. So Jinyoung stood up, looking a little red around the cheeks as one would expect after a blowjob, his hair all over the place.

And then he turned the camera off.

 

-

 

Mark was curious as to what Jinyoung had filmed for him while he was in the room. He thought that maybe it was a tour of everything or an explanation of what his job exactly was, either way, Mark waited patiently spinning in his chair completely oblivious to the tension of the other night.

Jazz music was playing and once again, Jaebum and Youngjae did not say anything for the time that Jinyoung was in the room. Youngjae overcompensated with the dish washing and Jaebum cleaned one cup for approximately ten minutes.

They hadn't said anything to Mark either, for a change. They seemed to adapt pretty quickly.

Which was when Jinyoung waltzed out of the room, his hair a little bit messy but everything else seeming exactly like it was before. Jaebum raised and eyebrow at him, and Jinyoung confrontationally looked back at him.

And then, the tension broke, and Jaebum sighed.

"I'm sorry." He said.

"Me too." Jinyoung answered.

Everything was alright, and when Jinyoung gently tugged on Mark's sleeves and dragged him to the dressing room to give him the camera there without Jaebum or Youngjae seeing, Mark asked him what it was that he filmed.

"You'll see," Jinyoung answered. "Now go home, I still have work to do and I'm walking with Jaebum tonight."

"Okay." Mark simply said, because it was Jinyoung who told him to and Jinyoung could ask him to eat on the floor for the rest of the week or take a star and bring it to the earth and Mark was afraid that he would do it without asking any questions.

When he held the camera, he felt the weight of it.

That was the first time.

 

-

 

When Mark breathed in the dirty, fresh air of the parking lot he felt his phone vibrate. Realizing that he had forgotten all about it for the entire night, he picked it up and saw ten messages and two missed calls, all from Jackson. Worried that he in trouble, he quickly checked the messages in such a haste that he almost let the phone and camera fall on the concrete.

When he read the messages, he almost slipped himself.

_"mark holy shit i met your Jinyoung plz answer me"_

* * *

 

**AN So how's oblivious Mark going to react to the film and how is their relationship going to go from here on out? Will Mark start to feel sexual towards Jinyoung, is Jinyoung just messing with him?**

**Thank you for reading and tell me what you think yo**


	7. Chapter Six.

  
Whatever Jinyoung filmed for Mark was important enough to him to be watched on a proper laptop with proper lightning and a proper headset. Even if it was a twenty minute film of a speck of dust going from one corner of the room to the other (which secretly Mark hoped it wasn't, he felt a little guilty for asking so much of Jinyoung) it would be worth it. So he was determined, and that day was the day in which he learned how to import a video from a camera to his laptop.

After a lot of puffing, huffing and even more desperate, near-giving up groans, he learned that he just hat to sit and wait for a couple of seconds (minutes) for the message to pop up on screen and he could access the files on the camera. Which he did, so Mark plopped on his bed with a creak and a squeak and put the lap top on his lap (despite Jackson insisting that his balls were going to be electrocuted off. It was called a laptop for a reason so Mark didn't listen to him) and put his earphones in before clicking on the video.

GTA wallpaper and the video which was labeled as '171116XYS'. Twelve minutes and thirty three seconds long.

The camera was focused on the dark red wood of the floor. It stayed that way for about ten seconds and before Mark thought that it might have been (a very bad and mean) prank from Jinyoung, the boy in question walked into the frame and dropped to his knees so his face was visible - this way he fixed up his soft hair so it strategically looked more messy than it truly was, and he pulled down his black shirt so it exposed his collarbones more than it normally would.

Mark got lost in his thoughts admiring how gorgeous he looked in casual clothing. Matter of fact, he looked beautiful in any type of clothing, but seeing him in his (more or less) every-casual-day state, eyeliner aside, was more than a little overwhelming to Mark's poor, fragile heart when it came to the older boy. Mark thought of all of this and didn't hear the door in the video slam hut, so he was confused when Jinyoung started talking to someone who he couldn't see.

Thick accent and a demanding voice - hands callused and manly. When Mark realized this, the man told Jinyoung to 'get to work' and grabbed his soft locks with a lot more roughness than he deserved. Mark got angry at this, that was, until the penny fell on feather sheet and it felt more like lead on machete paper going on twenty km/h. 

Stranger man's ugly hands in Jinyoung's pretty hair and Jinyoung mouthed at his clothed cock before he pulled away to turn around and grab for something that was out of frame. Mark's breath sped up and he didn't realize that it did. The man slapped his hand away and told him that it was 'just' oral and Mark wished that he didn't hear anything so obscene in relation to Jinyoung. Jinyoung told him that he wasn't 'just anyone he could pick up from the streets', and Mark knew that he wasn't.

"Just like that, ah - you're so good."

He moaned and grunted and that was the moment where Mark thought that he was going to pass out and a wave of pure, unadulterated heat hit his tummy that made him feel guilty, and he slammed the lap-top shut at the exact moment in which Jinyoung gagged on the other mans cock in front of him. 

He threw his headphones in the corner of the bed, sitting straight and pulling his shirt down to cover his crotch and begging himself not to get hard at what he had seen. He couldn't possible get horny over someone so  sweet, kind and lovely like Jinyoung, he thought, and held his hair in his hands distressed when he processed it.

It was more than _what_ Jinyoung was doing. It was the very belated realization that Jinyoung was a hooker. No, it wasn't that what Mark realized. He knew that he was a hooker, the concept somewhat lost in the back of his mind but never truly forgotten. He accepted with a shrug - he didn't really care about that. That was, until he _realized_ that he was a hooker. There was a difference, and the difference was that Jinyoung turned from an otherwordly angel to a sexual creature who, bluntly put, slept with men like Mark to pay his rent.

It took Mark all this time to realize this. Feeling curious came before feeling stupid, so he stared at the laptop which he threw on the bed, hia throat dry like he had slept with his mouth wide open and looked around the room to make sure that nobody was playing pranks on him. Then he picked it up again, lowering the volume and sitting on his knees before he pressed play.

Jinyoung looked so serene and dirty with someone's cock in his mouth. It was actually kind of funny, but Mark wasn't laughing and his breath hitched instead, forgetting how to breathe and his mind full of hormones and adrenaline playing tricks on him and he imagined the faceless man with ugly hands on the camera as himself - Jinyoung on his knees for Mark, Mark paying Jinyoung to twist and turn him however he liked.

If anybody was going to ask him (which nobody would, but he answered anyway) it was an accident, an isolated incident when Mark fell into a trance and took his sweatpants down to his thighs, it was curiousity and self-exploration when he got himself off at the same rhytm as Jinyoung was bobbing his head back and forth like he had done it so many times before, coming embarassingly fast just like the man on camera.

By the end of it, while Jinyoung was buckling up stranger man's belt, he exited out of the video and dragged himself to the bathroom like a zombie, almost jumping out of his skin when he saw his sister in the bathtub like he had been caught - even though he wasn't.

"Are you sick? You look red."

Or maybe he was. Mark ignored her while he washed his hands and ran back to his bedroom, shoving the laptop under his bed, putting the camera deep in his closet and, as if he were transported back into his thirteen year old body, let the thoughts of Jinyoung get the best of him three more times that night.

The next morning, he was exhausted.

 

-

 

Exhausted. Jinyoung was a lot of things most of times. Usually people described his as selective, and mostly strangers called him annoying because he walked and talked like he knew more than anyone else did and that threatened strangers who weren't keen on the way Jinyoung cocked his head back or the way he knocked out terrible pointers like it was his job. 

In reality, those people didn't know that Jinyoung was fluent in snark and sarcasm mostly because he learned the language when he started out as a hooker, but also a little bit out of self protection. Don't worry though, this isn't a sad story, and there's not much to say as to why Jinyoung felt like he had to protect himself from others in conversation. It's the typical mumbojumbo of a kid who grew up poor and took up prostitution as a job - don't give out too much information, don't seem to vulnerable, don't get cozy with anyone, yadada.

Jinyoung was a lot of things most of the times, mostly he was satisfied, but he doesn't remember the last time he had felt so _exhausted._

"Maybe you've had too much dick." Youngjae kindly suggested when Jinyoung walked into the lobby of the closed nightclub and stumbled to fall on his knees and bang his forehead into the make-up table that was right in front of him and was most likely going to leave a mark there. Youngjae was always subtle with his words - until he wasn't.

The floor had been cleaned, the scattered clothes were neatly folded and Youngjae had done a fantastic job of making sure that Jinyoung had _nothing_ to blame his fall on.

Now, Jinyoung was a lot of things, but spiteful and mean were not one (or two) of them. He never had bad intentions towards anyone - which might sound funny coming from a prostitute, but Jinyoung promises you that hookers rarely look down on their clients. So instead of comically turning around, letting out a loud and obnoxious 'yah!' (something which looks cool on paper and sounds stupid in person) he sighed and slouched on the floor instead. Letting the exhaustion slip into his limbs.

Jaebum walked in the second Youngjae walked out.

"Are you feeling sick?" He asked, already dressed in his casual clothes.

Jinyoung didn't answer. The clock kept ticking, so Jaebum ripped open the pack of the make-up remover (even though there was one which was already open right next to it) and squatted down so he was face to face with Jinyoung. He frowned at him, not condenscending but kind of amused.

"Listen, Jinyoungie," Jaebum carefully said, and suddely Jinyoung felt something wet against his cheek, and he promptly realized that Jinyoung was taking his make-up off for him. "Jokes aside, I really want you to quit this job. You make enough with your dancing - why put your body through this?"

Jinyoung was about to argue that _he_ never asked him and Youngjae to book five different guys in one night, one after another, but frankly he was tired and Jaebum took advantage of the situation and he didn't feel like arguing with Jaebum. Jinyoung eyed the clock in the corner and realized that it broke when Youngjae accidentally hit it with a broom.

The broken clock kept ticking. One step forward, two steps back.

"I'm just," Jinyoung sighed. "Tired, I haven't finish the essay yet."

Jaebum poked in the corners of his eye with the make-up remover. It hurt and he wasn't doing it right.

"Don't think about schoolwork this late at night - haven't you learnt your lesson in highschool?" Jaebum said, rubbing Jinyoung's lips. "You made five hundred tonight, by the way."

"Wrong." Jinyoung deadpanned.

"What?"

"Wrong," Jinyoung repeated. " _Wrong_ Jaebum - you don't use the same remover for eye make-up _and_ your lips. Where's Youngjae?"

Jaebum stood up. "He left," helped Jinyoung on his feet. "He told me off for what happened earlier," took the jacket off the chair and spread it out for Jinyoung. "Also - you need to get check-ups again. I know you insist that you're safe but you never know with these creeps."

"Ever thought how I don't take care of you half as much as you take care for me?"

They fell into a short silence.

"That's stupid," Jaebum said him. "That's really stupid."

He didn't tell him why it was stupid and Jinyoung honestly didn't think that it was - but Jaebum insisted that it was _really_ stupid which means that he was probably right about something in his statement. Jinyoung shut up. Jaebum didn't like it when he was quiet, so he poked his ribs and then tickled his sides when Jinyoung let out loud laughter and begged him to stop.

"We should just get married, steal your dads money and run away." Jinyoung sighed out, catching his breath and letting himself take a step back and thus hitting Jaebum's chest, who was still holding his shoulders to adjust his jacket around him after they impromptu battle of tickles.

Jaebum's fingers tensed on his clothed skin for a few moments. Jinyoung felt uncomfortable.

"Don't joke about that." Was all Jaebum said before he patted Jinyoung's clothes down and stepped to the right, almost letting Jinyoung fall with his back on the floor and probably get a concussion or two. If that was possible. 

If Jinyoung was as mean spirited as everybody else said he was, he would have told Jaebum something like  _'I'm not'_ or  _'I'm serious'_ because Jinyoung knew, he knew how Jaebum felt about him and he knew it before Jaebum told him a very long time ago. He knew this, Jaebum knew that he knew, and Jinyoung felt something there for Jaebum, but he couldn't ever do him wrong by going in half heartedly. Jaebum meant so much more to him than that. So he shut up instead, gulping and wondering why he said what he did.

Jaebum noticed this, so the cold tone in his voice was gone like sun melting off the snow. He smiled at him.

"Now let's get out of here - everyone has already gone home except us two." And with that, Jaebum already waltzed out of the door, looking a little colder than Jinyoung did, and Jinyoung touched his lips which needed vaseline and proper make-up remover. He touched them, suddenly missing Jaebum when he was just a couple of steps away from him.

He looked at the clock, heard Jaebum sing to a radio sing which was as uncharacteristic as it was charming, and he wondered if Mark had already gone to sleep. They were all exhausted, and the day needed to end quickly for a new start.

Jinyoung felt better.

The broken clock kept ticking.

Jinyoung was determined to fix it someday.

-

 

Jinyoung with messy hair and oversized clothes rolling out of bed on a lazy Sunday morning with the scent of bacon and eggs coming from the kitchen. Jinyoung the university student with glasses on the bridge of his nose. Jinyoung. Jinyoung with eyeliner and booty shorts. Jinyoung in booty shorts and one of Mark's basketball shirts, lying on one of Mark's basketball bedsheets, panting heavy and cheeks turning red. Jinyoung in thigh high socks, Jinyoung kissing him goodnight. Jinyoung with make-up on. Jinyoung with make-up off. Jinyoung when he was happy and gleeful.

These were the thoughts which plagued Mark's tender mind the next day. Suddenly seeming a lot more like the protagonist of an edgy coming of age story and less like the simple minded guy that he was supposed to be - so he turned up the music as loud as possible in their secret hide-out, feeling annoyed with his own body and jittery and not knowing what to do with himself.

 _Flatbush Zombies 3001: A Laced Oddysey_  album was the recommended album, so Mark clicked it. Any sound was a good enough sound for Mark, and he only realized how pathetic he looked when Jackson physically smacked him minutes later.

He turned the volume down.

Jackson looked at Mark and Mark looked at Jackson, their mental conversation going something like 'what the fuck are you doing?' and Mark answering with something like 'mind your own business I'm busy feeling sorry for myself' - Jackson was having none of that nonsense however, and spoke out, 

"You look like you're going through your second puberty," He said. "Jinyoung ordered BBQ pizza by the way."

"I'm a terrible person." Mark deadpanned, and Jackson suddenly was worried with the lack of emotion.

Which was when he told Jackson about his entire situation minus the details of the video because for some reason he didn't want Jackson to see what he saw and it wasn't because he was possessive or because he was a little bit more of a pervert with Jinyoung than he was ready to admit to himself, so he defended himself with the excuse of privacy instead. Jackson wasn't exactly dying to see the video anyway.

"You feel guilty that you're getting horny over a stripper?"

"I'm not going back," Mark said, traumatized. "I'm so not going there anymore. To hell with it all - I'd rather die."

"Then die," Jackson answered. "But visit him the afterlife - what if he thinks you're disgusted now, asshole?"

Mark thought about it before he felt guilty enough that he stopped doing that. He looked at Jackson who for the second time in a month looked smug for no reason but Mark wasn't bothered enough to say anything about it. Instead, he realized that he was maybe being tactless if he actually stopped seeing Jinyoung. He swears that it wasn't because he would take any poor excuse to see Jinyoung again - no, not at all. Jackson made a valid point for the first time in his life, so Mark merely took his advice. First times, you know.

"You're _right_." Mark dumbly concluded.

"Of course I am." Jackson assured him, just as dumbly.

"I should see him."

" _Of course_ you should."

"You're right."

"I _always_ am."

He wasn't.

 

-

 

All things considered - this was definitely the most exciting thing that had happened in Mark's life, and he didn't stop to think and realize how pathetic that probably sounded to anyone that wasn't him. Or Jackson, or Yugyeom or BamBam. That was, if anybody actually cared enough to ask him about it. Which no one did, because nobody points at a random flock of teenage boys on skateboards and dirty shirts and wonder 'hm, I wonder what life they've been living?'

If anybody did, he'd take his time to sit you down and bullshit up some stories to convince you that he wasn't just living by the day and letting his youth slip through his fingers like quicksand, letting it happen. He'd tell you about all the girls he seduced against the doors of the weekly friday night house part and he'd tell you about the time BamBam jumped in the water when he was shit-faced drunk and they had to take a midnight trip to the nearest hospital. Actually, this happened a couple of times, and funnily enough, it was always BamBam.

'You've done all this stuff so young, what will you do when you get bored of it?' His older sister asked him while preparing a strawberry milkshake that wasn't for Mark, and Mark was seventeen years old having the worst hangover of his life whilst wearing the same clothes he went out with the night before. His sister wasn't actually expecting an answer though.

'Are you gonna be like mom and go find your adrenaline kick elsewhere?' His sister continued, and the thought of Mark being more like his mother who eloped with a south american man and less like his father who got used to the system was too much for him to process, so he threw all of his seventeen year old thoughts up in the toilet.

All things considered, he had done a lot but hadn't lived enough. He was basic, and although hopeless fuckboys generally had the self consciousness of a rock, Mark knew and accepted this and he wasn't lying when he said that he was satisfied with his life. He never expected or asked more of it, he didn't have crazy ambitions he felt like he had to chase for the rest of his life.

He had a roof on his head and ate cereals every morning. His biggest existential issue came from his extravagant mother. That was, until he met the extravagant stripper at the night club and he pressed 'record' for the first time in his life. That might've started a chain reaction of changes.

Perhaps Mark wasn't as satisfied with his life as he told himself he was. He considered this while he was tying the shoelaces of his sneakers, and almost reached an important conclusion before he stopped.

Because no one had asked him, so Mark wasn't going to answer.

 

-

 

When it rains it pours and Jinyoung was shellshocked to see that Mark showed up at the club much earlier than he normally did, panting loud and annoying like he had ran several marathons just for Jinyoung. Mark slammed the door open, and Jinyoung curiously looked at Jaebum to see what he would do.

He looked like he was about to pop a vein or two, so Jinyoung considered two things - one was watch Jaebum fight Mark about the door (which was just an excuse to fight Mark because a. they just opened and b. Jaebum hated Mark's guts) or two, which was stand up and save Mark from the upcoming storm he didn't know he was in. Thankfully Jinyoung was Jaebum's personal weather forecaster and knew what was going to happen and when Jaebum was going to pop off, so he gracefully off the seat at the bar with his unlighted cigarette at the bar - taking Mark's wrist and running in Jinyoung's room, giggling and hopping towards it while Mark blushed and looked at the floor instead.

Mark looked up to Jinyoung when he shut the door and heard something like glass hit the wall and Youngjae's voice sushing Jaebum. 

"What had you in such a hurry, babyboy?" Jinyoung suddenly said, turning around and forcing Mark back into the reality of standing in front of the gorgeous Jinyoung with plump pink lips and a perfectly imperfect complexion which had a darker tone than his own, his eye-wrinkles being absolutely adorable and his soft hair falling in front of his eyebrows. Mark took all of this in less than a second and he refused to look below the neck or he might have suffocated to death.

"You look like you've see a ghost." Jinyoung continued with a flirty tone, his hand going from Mark's collarbones down to his abdomen, where he pulled at his belt and lightly pushed him on the bed which was behind him the exact same way he had pushed down hundred of men down before. Jinyoung thought that Mark's reactions were the funniest he had ever gotten in his life - like a deer in the headlights, so Jinyoung laughed hard.

"Am I that scary?" He asked, bouncing on the bed and hugging his own legs. He held them close to his body as his eyes traced up and down Mark's body which was muscular in a lanky kind of way and he was just a little bit taller than Jinyoung was, barely. "What has you so spooked?" 

Mark's throat felt dry. He spoke.

"Am I annoying?" He suddenly asked, and Jinyoung let go of his own legs.

"Is something upsetting you?" Jinyoung wanted to know, sitting closer to Mark and gently brushed his hair away from his eyes when they fell in a comfortable but loaded silence. Jinyoung realized that Mark's hair had a lot of knots. Jinyoung realized that his skin was very clear and Jinyoung realized that his lips were chapped and he suddenly felt the need to put vaseline on them like his own mother had always done to him when he was a child.

"I don't know." Mark answered sincerely, sounding a little lost.

Jinyoung thought about it, taking his hand away from the younger boys face.

"You're not," Jinyoung said. "I mean - you're a pain in the neck when you agree with Jaebum, but you're nice."

Mark felt his fingers trace from his forehead to the tip of his nose and arch of his lips down to his collarbones, and although all the movies taught him that at that moment he shouldn't have wanted nothing more but to fuck Jinyoung hard and raw, he mostly felt comforted, encouraged and consoled.

Jinyoung was a really beautiful person - he thought, and he wanted to get to know every crook and cranny of his life. Naturally, he got shy at the thought of having his body on his own and he definitely got a little dizzy when he heard the rhythm of Jinyoung's breaths when he took Mark's hands and played with his fingers, feeling his heartbeat and holding in the urge of pressing down on his chest to feel it even better.

He counted each of them - each heartbeat and slowly but steadily, his mind which was getting cloudier than he was comfortable with cleared out like the sun peeked through the clouds and Mark wished that he could fall asleep just like that. He briefly wondered if it was puppy love. Which sounded silly coming from someone who has had plenty of short-lived relationships before. 

Which was when he felt a cigarette poke his lips, and looked up to see Jinyoung trying to force it between his teeth with a troubled, boyish expression on his face, and Mark blinked at him, making sure to store the image in his folder of the 'million and one expressions of Park Jinyoung.'

"Thinking doesn't suit you. You look too mature." Jinyoung told him.

Mark finally opened his mouth and Jinyoung sighed exasperation, lightening it up for him and then lightening his own.

Which was how the they ended up smoking in Jinyoung's club room in which he had some sort of sex with over a hundred different people over the years, and never had anyone been in his bed without the intention of fucking them for money - Jaebum and Youngjae opted for the dressing room whenever they felt sick. It left an odd taste in his mouth and Jinyoung was too accustomed to nicotine for it to have been the cigarettes. Mark didn't smoke at all which was the main reason why he had clean and clear skin like he did. 

"Anyways, it's time to get to work." Jinyoung announced, putting his cigarette down on the drawer next to them, and he took Mark's cigarette out of his mouth before he kissed him on his lips - hard but not rough and it was smooth like butter and it felt a little too right for Jinyoung to feel perfectly comfortable with it because whenever he kissed, he always knew that it was a job. With Mark, the line got a little blurry.

So he stopped kissing him, leaving Mark panting on his pillows, his hands never once leaving his sides and Jinyoung stared at him. He had kissed Mark, he kissed Mark and it was partially out of habit and mostly because it felt wrong to have him in his room and not give him something. People only ever came in his room when they wanted something. He didn't assume Mark was any different, even if he knew that he was.

Jinyoung felt the incessant need to corrupt him not out of spite, but to put a safe space between them before things got even more out of line that it had already gotten - Jaebum would shut up about letting non-clients in the bar and he could finally find a reason for Mark to be in his life. He'd be just like the other clients - whether he wanted it or not.

"Kiss me too." Jinyoung said, grabbing Mark's hand and putting it on his own chest.

"Kiss you?" Mark barely whispered, voice raspy, feeling like he was about to die.

Jinyoung was kissing him! Mark couldn't process it, nor could he stop the switch in his mind when Jinyoung asked him to kiss him, because all resistance was futile and even Mark reached a point of carnal want at some point. He wanted to take care of Jinyoung, wished he could admire him forever - but he was kissing him instead, Jinyoung on top of him and putting his hand on his chest. Mark wondered if they were falling in love, he wasn't sure.

So he kissed him - he kissed him softly, holding his arms with more love and care than Jinyoung hoped he would. Which was when Jinyoung kissed him harder, and Mark gently tangled his hand in Jinyoung's hair with the intention of deepening the kiss when he felt a pair of hands in his back pocket, and suddenly his wallet was gone and Jinyoung was sat on the other side of the bed taking out his money.

Mark did not know what to say.

"I'll take it," Jinyoung announced, like he hadn't just had his first kiss with Mark. "Thank you for your patronage."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me: uses the phrase 'pop off' in a fanfic.  
> as per usual i only know where this is going in the middle of the fic so I guess the plot is put in motion with this chapter lol what do you think??? thank you for reading !


	8. Chapter Eight.

The tests came back as negative and Jinyoung was not surprised. That did not stop him from sticking the paper on Jaebum's forehead while he was asleep and the good news did not stop Jaebum from putting Jinyoung in a headlock in the kitchen for giving him an ugly red stamp between his eyebrows.

"Safe sane and consensual," He said, pouring coffee for the both of them - Jinyoung with milk and Jaebum without. "That's what it's about, right?"

"That's literally about BDSM." Jaebum said.

"Oh," Jinyoung hummed, accidentally spilling the milk over the cup. "Well, how would you know I'm not not doing that? You're watching through the cameras, pervert?"

Jaebum laughed at this, putting his newspaper on the table in their kitchen, folded his arms across his chess and looked up to his bestfriend agitatedly wiping the milk with a shirt they used as a rag.

"No thank you, Youngjae might get jealous."

 

-

 

Mark's head was spinning like he was crossfaded and didn't know what day of the week he was living in. He touched his lips, looked at the palm of his hand and then put his cheek against the wall because it was cold and he needed to cool himself off.

Jinyoung had kissed him, Mark had kissed him back.

Mark was twenty-five dollars poorer, and he didn't know if he even cared about that. Jinyoung had kissed him, and Mark couldn't stop thinking about it since it happened seventeen hours, fourty three minutes and twenty eight seconds ago.

Jinyoung kissed him and Mark kissed him back and he did his best not to show the rest of the world exactly how he was feeling - happy, confused and secretly wanting to tell everything to his makeshift psychologist Jackson so he could tell him what everything, what all of these feelings meant.

Which was how he spent an impressive eighteen hours doing absolutely nothing. Nothing meaning letting the water pour over the teapot before his sister yelled at him and telling him to 'wake up, Mark, you're dreaming,' and Mark wondered if she was right. So he put his white Nike shoes on, ignored how dirty they were getting and took in the clean Californian air all the way down to his lungs before he ran to his - their - hideout.

Call it telephaty or call it luck - Jackson, Yugyeom and BamBam were all lazily laying on the couches with pizza boxes on the floor while blasting music on their speakers. BamBam and Yugyeom tangling their legs which made it impossible to know where one started and where one ended.

"You look like your sister just beat your ass," Was the first thing Yugyeom, cheeks-stuffed-with-peperoni-and-cheese Yugyeom said. "What happened?"

The formation of words didn't make sense to Mark at that moment. In fact, he briefly forgot that he walked all the way to their hideout in the first place. He frowned at Yugyeom like he was the one who was talking in alien tongue, and in turn Yugyeom raised an eyebrow at him as if he were expecting an answer.

"You look spooked, Mark." BamBam kindly translated.

Mark finally understood, so he opened and closed his mouth a couple of times before he nodded and sat down next to Jackson. His shirt was getting dirty from the greasy pizza but Mark was used to it.

They were still looking at Mark however, and Mark figured that he probably had to say something to them, so he confessed.

"He kissed me." He said.

Comically so, the track finished and the room fell in total silence when he said those words. The cheese was dripping off of Jackson's pizza slice and Yugyeom's jaw dropped - making him look more stupid than usual.

"Sorry," He said. "What did you just say?"

Mark wanted to die. That or shrink until he small enough he could hide in Jackson's pocket or something.

"I said," He miserably repeated. "He kissed me. On the mouth."

Which was exactly when Jackson stuffed the pizza slice in his mouth all at once and tripped over himself to hug Mark. He fell with his elbows on the carpet but the burn didn't seem to deter his spirit to jump his friend. He was on his lap less than a second after that, and Yugyeom and BamBam screeched in unision while a new song started playing.

Mark thought he was going to pass out. It was getting too hot and he was going to choke on the air and he was going to lose it.

"Holy shit," Jackson said. "Isn't that like, amazing?"

Yes, yes it should have been amazing. That was the thing, Mark was still processing the matter and didn't know whether it truly was an amazing thing or not. The answer should have been obvious, right? his crush, the beautiful person he became infatuated with had kissed him, for God's sake.

Which was exactly why he didn't like the uneasiness he was feeling tug on his lungs and bite in the pit of his stomach. Like mosquito buzzes and ants crawling up his neck.

"Why do you look so unsure?" Jackson, his guardian angel, interrupted his thoughts. "He kissed you and that means that he feels something for you - this is the beginning, Mark," He paused. "He likes you too, dummy."

Mark looked over to his other two friends, who were nodding wildly and holding each others wrists like they were more excited and happy about it than Mark was. Jinyoung liked him, Jinyoung liked him too. Mark had to repeat and re-repeat it several times and analyze each word before he swallowed.

Jinyoung kissed him, and that meant that Jinyoung liked him.

Jinyoung liked him, Jinyoung liked him, Mark finally jumped up from the couch and accidentally threw Jackson back on the floor in the process of it. He looked at his friends, realized exactly where he was and what day of the week he lived in, and then he yelled.

"He kissed me!" He said, determined. "Oh my god, BamBam, he kissed me."

"He sure did," BamBam said, grinning at his friend. "I can't believe it either."

Which was when it finally sunk in. The queasiness tugging on his lungs and completely overshadowed by his friends words and his own excitement. Jinyoung kissed him, Mark kissed back and they liked each other. Mark wanted to do the impossible and run up the walls and hug every person he saw on the streets.

Instead, he threw Jackson on the carpet for the third time that day by jumping on him and giving him a suffocating hug. So suffocating that Yugyeom and BamBam had to pull him away before he actually passed out by the power of love.

"I can't believe it." Mark said, and in the end, he was in such a good mood that he ordered another pizza for them. He let BamBam chose the music for the rest of the day and he even let Jackson make fun of him. He couldn't wait to see Jinyoung, his friends blessings making him feel a little more secure.

Mark never mentioned the money Jinyoung took from him after their kiss. Frankly, he had forgotten it all together, figured it probably didn't mean much, anyways. It was just a small term and condition on the contract he accepted.

Mark was never much of a reader, anyway.

 

-

 

He was healthy, but Jinyoung started to feel weak on his knees much quicker that he normally would. It started when he applied his make-up to his face and the eyeliner just didn't look right - what normally took a quick ten minute fix-up this time took twenty five, and only because Youngjae walked in and saw him struggle while he was smudging the black all over his hands and on the verge of tears and helplessness.

It was the second time he felt that way.

"You're tired, sweetheart." Youngjae said it like it were obvious, patting Jinyoung's head and brushing his fingers through his hair, which was a little burnt and not as soft as it looked.

Jinyoung didn't think he was tired. He didn't have a lot of homework and he only worked one extra day at the club after all, he told Youngjae this, and this one just sighed and gently lifted Jinyoung's head by the chin and grabbed the eyeliner.

"You don't have to be doing things to be tired, you know." Youngjae said, carefully applying Jinyoung's eyeliner for him. He turned around and grabbed red lipstick - Jinyoung looked at him like he was crazy.

Sure, Jinyoung loved make-up but red lipstick was a little too extravagant for him. Youngjae shook his head, like Jinyoung didn't get it, and put a bit on his finger, mixing it with vaseline and finally tapping it on Jinyoung's lips.

"I have two older sisters. I know about this stuff." Youngjae proudly explained when Jinyoung let out a little gasp when he looked at himself in the mirror, noticing that his lips popped but didn't seem to have any lipstick on at first glance.

"Is this how you seduced Jaebum?" He bluntly asked, and Youngjae's cheeks resembled the lipstick when he blushed at his words, suddenly not sure what to say.

"Well, I mean," Youngjae said, playing with his tie and looking down at the floor. "Not really. I mean, maybe I showed him once or twice, but that's all."

Jinyoung looked at his younger friend through the mirror. He smiled, feeling a little bit more energetic than before because Youngjae was just that adorable whenever he talked about Jaebum and how they fell in love.

"Don't tell him I told you but he used to always go for the girls with the red lipstick," Jinyoung confessed. "He's a total pervert, I didn't expect it go like that for boys, too."

And with that, he looked at Youngjae all-knowingly. He was blushing, and it was ridiculously sweet how much he loved his boyfriend Jaebum. Jinyoung thought that they made a good couple, balanced each other out, made Jaebum's edges softer and made Youngjae's a little harder.

"Whatever, Jinyoung," Youngjae said, looking away. "We're opening soon, so get ready."

 

-

 

Mark was walking on clouds until he got pulled down back to earth with a metaphorical cane by the collar around his neck, choked and forced to sit down on the wobbly, wooden chair by the table in their kitchen. 

"Hold it right there young man," His father suddenly said, and Mark was startled because he didn't know that he was home in the first place. "Where are you going with such a rush? Have you eaten?"

"Um," Mark was confused, looking around the room to make sure that his mind wasn't playing tricks on him. "What?"

"It's dinner time." His father deadpanned, like it were obvious, like he forgot that Mark and his father and his sister haven't had dinner together since Mark was fifteen and his sister was nineteen and starting university at the same time their father got transferred to another hospital in another city.

"Um," Mark said again. "I don't really have a dinner time, dad, no offense."

He seemed to think about it.

"You're right." He admitted, and Mark felt weirder by the second, struggling not to get on his feet and fly out the door the second his father sat down next to him. Don't misunderstand, Mark loved his father and all that, but he wasn't used to talking to him face-to-face.

"Did you get early weekend, or something?" Mark tried, because it was starting to get awkward and Mark really, really didn't want to have a sad conversation about family and dinner and togetherness because he didn't think it was that big of a deal.

"Yes, sort of," His father said, and sighed. It was that authoritarian kind of sigh adults do when they're about to say something incredibly offensive, condenscending, or tell you that your grandmother died of old age. "Mark, you know I believe in your freedom and all that, but have you even bothered to look at different universities?"

"Oh my _god_." Mark said, standing up and completely ready to run out of his front door, but also perfectly aware that he'd get a shoe thrown at the back of his head if he dared to do that, so he sat back down.

"I'm not rushing you, I'm just telling you to think about it."

He looked apologetic, so Mark sighed. "Yes, you're right," He said. "I just haven't gotten to it yet, I've been busy."

Now it was his fathers turn to raise an eyebrow as if he was expecting Mark to give him a detailed explanation of what exactly he has been busy with. Frankly, it wasn't much of anything before he met Jinyoung. Just live by the day, kicking cans by the sidewalks and drinking beer in parking lots while the sun went down.

There was a conclusion there, but Mark wasn't ready to find it yet. Instead, he smiled at his dad, telling him not to worry about it, promising he was going to look for brochures and then telling him he was going to meet up with Jackson.

"Fine," His father sighed. "Go."

Mark gladly obliged.

 

  
-

 

Jinyoung was far from the only person working at the club. Granted, he was the most requested, most beloved dancer who had worked there for the longest time (hookers generally have a twelve month lifespan per club), but he was not alone.

Over the course of the years he and Jaebum have worked there, they had seen a lot of people come and go. Some were forced out because they were up to shady business or brought trouble to the club, and others left on their own.

Jinyoung didn't form any particularly meaningful relationship with anyone apart from Jaebum, who he already knew, and Youngjae. That was, except for one younger boy who looked very similar to himself, and even Jaebum confused the back of their heads and grabbed the older boys nape instead of Jinyoung's when he wanted to yell at him again.

That was the catalyst of their strange friendship.

It was a friendship based on solace and coca-cola cans that Jaebum bought for them. The funny part of it all was that Jinyoung never knew his real name. Sometimes he went by Minhyuk, and other times he went by outrageous fake names and feminine names like Laila, despite being a boy. He never asked him about it, because names were sacred in their business, but quickly discovered that even his name in the contract was fake.

Even so, Minhyuk was the only person Jinyoung could call a friend in their two years in the club. He was easygoing, easy to talk with and he'd eat with Jinyoung in the changing room while everyone else was changing by the lockers. Minhyuk never asked too much, but sometimes Jinyoung wished that he did.

Minhyuk was the only friend Jinyoung had there, and he was devastated when one day he stopped coming, one day turned into weeks and then disappeared all together. His clothes were still in his locker, his key was still hanging on the board in case he ever wanted to come back for them, until Jaebum was forced to take them down and throw away the clothes after months of radio silence.

Jinyoung started eating by the bar with Jaebum instead of in his dressing room. Youngjae came in a few months after Minhyuk got out, and slowly but steadily Jinyoung got used to his new company and Jaebum's pitiful, saddened smile everytime he saw jinyoung nitpick the food he was eating by himself and not with the other dancers.

"You know, we should double team some of the rich guys." Minhyuk suggested on the last Sunday he spent there, and they did. They made more money than ever that night, and it was the first and last time Jinyoung hung out with him after working hours. They bought the biggest milkshake at the snackbar, and Jinyoung wished they could have done more of that.

Years later, Jinyoung wondered if he had a crush on him. After sitting on the thought for a few months he came to the conclusion that he didn't. Jinyoung didn't have a lot of friends, not because he didn't want them, but because they didn't want him. It's silly to imagine sex workers of all people hold any prejudice towards other sex workers, but it happened.

Overtime he realized that he had Jaebum and Youngjae. He thought it was enough, that was, until he started to wonder if it was enough.

 

-

 

Naturally, Minhyuk leaving meant that Jinyoung, despite everything, was alone again. It meant that the other dancers had all the more reason to criticize Jinyoung for every little and every bigger thing he did. Where Minhyuk would normally defend Jinyoung or tell jokes to make him feel better about it, now was an empty space and Jinyoung realizing that those dancers were going to leave in a few months anyways, and that he did not care.

He figured that they were jealous - needed more money than they could get.

That didn't mean that Jinyoung didn't second guess himself sometimes. Made him wonder if he was actually just _that_ much of an insufferable person, made him wonder if everyone else was right and Jaebum and Youngjae were wrong. Maybe his playful remarks were too _mean_ , maybe walking with his chin up was too _arrogant_ , maybe Jinyoung had to change.

It wasn't like he needed friends, but sometimes he wondered what it would feel like to have more of Minhyuk.

Jinyoung liked eating at the front of the house with the bartenders. He could be as outrageous as he wanted to be and neither of them would tell him to simmer down or whisper to each other about how _loud_ he's being. He found peace with it, that was, until it was the obligatory monthly clean up, and Jaebum almost shooed Jinyoung in the locker rooms.

"Don't be difficult Jinyoung, the sink is leaking and we _need_ to clean it up as fast as possible." Jaebum said, but said it too quickly and Jinyoung barely understood what he said, but Youngjae taking out the mop and almost tripping over the floor explained enough.

Which was how, the night after he kissed Mark for the first time, Jinyoung ended up in the locker rooms he didn't touch since the first month he started working there, which was two years ago.

Everyone stared at him like he didn't belong there, and Jinyoung knew for a fact that he didn't. Even so, he installed himself in the corner of the rooms by the mirrors and told himself he was going to get dressed and maybe smoke in the back alley before anyone had a chance to try him.

Unfortunately, he was too slow, because Hansol was already grabbing the eyeliner from his make-up bag and opening it. Jinyoung was going to act unbothered, unafraid like he usually did, even if he didn't want to be in that situation in the first place.

"So I heard you found yourself a new admirer," Hansol said, putting the eyeliner back in his bag and taking out the concealer instead. "But he looks so young, does he really have the money to be here so much?"

There it was.

Jinyoung rolled his eyes, quickly straightening out his black shirt and grabbing the make-up bag before turning around wanting to leave. Except that Hansol was grabbing the bag too, and didn't let Jinyoung go, shoving him back in the corner instead.

"Is he your boyfriend?" Hansol suddenly asked, and Jinyoung could hear a few people chuckle.

"You're gonna want to let that go, Hansol." Jinyoung patiently suggested, nudging at the bag the two of them were holding.

Hansol raised an eyebrow, and instead of listening he pulled the small make-up bag towards himself, and then back against Jinyoung again, pushing him against the wall and making him bump into it.

"Why so mean?" Hansol asked. "We're your friends, you know he's only into you because he's a kid and new to this kind of stuff, right?" It sounded more like a confirmation this time. "He'll forget about you when he finds something new, you don't want to get hurt, we're all hookers here, no judgment."

Which was when he finally let go of the bag, and Jinyoung let go of the breath he didn't know he was holding in.

"How about you worry about your own clients instead?" Jinyoung asked, smiling sweetly. "It looks like you need it." Which was how Jinyoung shoved the make-up bag back in Hansols hands, letting it drop by his feet, and ushering himself out the room.

Jaebum looked at him bewildered when he stomped in. "Jinyoung I told yo-"

Jinyoung turned around, shooting daggers at him.

"Don't you _ever_ tell what to do ever again, Im Jaebum."

 

-

 

A glass of Henessey he didn't pay for, jazz music playing in the background an hour before the show, trap music and scandalous hip-hop started. Mark sat by the bar and was the only person in the entire place wearing sneakers and sweatpants. Jaebum stopped sighing when he saw him and started ignoring him when he sat down and drank his glass slower and slower with every passing night.

"I think Jinyoung is outside, Mark." Youngjae told him, not looking up from the cups he was drying after Jaebum washed them.

"Oh," Mark said. "I figured, but I need some liquid courage, you know?"

Youngjae was more surprised that someone like Mark knew the saying liquid courage, but decided he wasn't going to say anything about it. Being mean to Mark was Jaebum's job, after all, so instead he gave him another icecube instead. Which was exactly when Jaebum's phone lit up, and his neutral expression turned into a scowl.

He didn't say anything though, and when Youngjae asked, Jaebum didn't answer. Youngjae didn't annoy him any further, but they all noticed how Jaebum tensed after that - cleaning the remaining cups with a little more fervor, his jaw clenching a little tighter.

Mark figured it was for the best that he walked out.

 

-

 

Which was how Mark's breath was knocked out of his lungs when he found Jinyoung sitting on top of his kingdom of trashcans, smoking the same way he smoked when they first met. Mark remembered the time - the taste of nicotine on his tongue and Jinyoung's way with words that left him absolutely dumbfoundead and stupid ever since.

He stared at him for a good five minutes, and just like the first time, it was Jinyoung who sensed that he was there without even having to look his way. Mark wondered how he could do that, whether he had a radar for Mark the same way Mark had one for Jinyoung.

"You really need to do something about your staring problem." Jinyoung sighed, squashing the cigarette against the trashcan - he seemed a little sad.

"I'm sorry," Mark said, walking towards him and looking at everything that was Jinyoung. From his shoes to his fingers, from how his hair was styled to inhaling the scent of the cologne he chose for that day. "How are you?"

Jinyoung finally turned his head to look at him, frowning. "Well that's a loaded question - how am I animically, financially? please specify."

"Um, sorry?" Mark didn't know what animically meant, Jinyoung both giggled and rolled his eyes at this.

"I'm _okay_ , sweetheart," Jinyoung finally said. "I didn't expect to see you here so soon."

In all honesty, Jinyoung didn't expect to see Mark at the club ever again. He was a client, he got what he paid for, whether he physically gave him the money or not, and they shouldn't have been talking like they were friends. Mark was his client, and Jinyoung wasn't supposed to talk to clients outside of work.

Yet it felt so natural. Or better said, it felt so unnatural _not_ to talk to Mark like they were friends, tell him how mean the other dancers were being to him. He thought about Hansols words, Mark was going to get bored of him the second he found something more interesting.

Jinyoung knew that.

He gently rubbed Mark's shoulder, and Mark blushed at this, debating whether to make a run for it or to get closer. He remembered what Jackson told him, about how Jinyoung probably liked him too and that they kissed, so that had to mean something.

Mark knew that, so he kissed Jinyoung's hand when he caressed his face, visibly startling Jinyoung with his actions. Jinyoung cleared his throat.

"Come inside with me." Jinyoung suddenly said, lights flickering in the alleyway, rats running out of the sewer and into the garbage cans. It was past midnight, and Jinyoung's heart was racing in a marathon his smoker self wasn't prepared for.

"Why?" Mark whispered, and it would have been so easy to just lightly bite Jinyoung's thumb which was resting in the corner of his mouth - but then he felt a raindrop fall on his cheek, in the middle of a summer night, and it was a situation Mark had never been in before.

Not because of the summer Californian night rain, but because of Jinyoung.

"Alright." Mark finally gave in, following Jinyoung inside the room from the previous night.

And if he gave the smallest, lighest kiss to Jinyoung's thumb near his mouth, neither of them were going to talk about it.

 

-

 

Jinyoung kissed like Mark was his oxygen tank and the rain was drowning the neon red coloured night club deep, deep into a new ocean that wasn't displayed on any map in the world yet. Jinyoung locked the door, and then turned Mark around to kiss him against it, tongue in his mouth, one hand on his cheek, the other holding the doorknob.

Mark panted the second he got the air knocked out of him when he hit his head against the wood, desperately grabbing on the doorknob to hold on to something, anything, but ended up accidentally holding Jinyoung's hand instead. Accidentally, it started to become a habit.

He could've melted in Jinyoung's kiss, and part of his brain asked him why he didn't let go and envelop himself in the warmth of his body and the trap music in the background, his hand slipping from Jinyoung's to fall against his sides.

He lifted his head when Jinyoung took a break to catch his breath, centimeters away from Mark's wet, swollen lips, centimeters away of feeling his heart jump in his chest because of him. Jinyoung went on his toes to kiss Mark again, but this one looked the other way.

"Wait," Mark said, panted and stuttered, finding his way to hold Jinyoung's hand on the doorknob, looking in his eyes to calm him down. "Let- let me walk you home tonight."

Jinyoung frowned and kissed him instead, hoping to shut the younger boy up for good and have him get thrown on the bed behind them instead. Wooden floor creaking, Mark's head banging against the door from time to time - Mark stopped them for a second time.

"Jinyoung, answer me." He said, trying to be stern.

"Shut up," Jinyoung said, and he could swear he heard Youngjae call his name outside, but Jinyoung didn't care for time or his responsibilities at that moment, he grabbed Mark's hands and put them on his hips. "Just kiss me."

" _Jinyoung,_ " Mark finally said, stepping forward and waking Jinyoung up from his self-destructive mission. "I'll come pick you up. I'll even wait for you here if that's what you want."

Jinyoung almost let himself fall.

He thought about it, and made the mistake of looking up at the younger boy dressed like he just rolled out of bed. His pupils were dilated, his chest was heaving up and down, he was blushing, obviously turned on, and yet he didn't force Jinyoung to do anything.

Jinyoung was uncomfortable with people doing their best to make him feel so comfortable, forced into a corner of a situation he had no control over. Mark didn't want him just for his body - he knew that, he knew that and it was unverving.

Which was when he heard Youngjae, loud and clear this time, knock on the door and telling Jinyoung to get ready for the stage. Jinyoung looked at Mark, who looked back at him, and then Jinyoung sighed.

"Give me twenty dollars." He said, tired.

Mark frowned in confusion, but not necessarily unkind. "You want to eat afterwards?"

"Just give me the money, Mark."

"I mean," Mark said, taking out his wallet. "I can pay for you there, but sure."

Which was when Youngjae knocked for a third time, and it was Jaebum who forced the door open, making Mark stumbled back and surprising the both of them seeing him there. Jaebum turned around to look at Jinyoung like he was expecting an explanation.

Jinyoung didn't give him one, instead, he had every intention to run towards the stage and not say anything to anyone, but unfortunately Mark was faster than his feet and grabbed his wrist, stopping him.

Which was how Mark gave him a short, reassuring kiss on the lips infront of Jaebum and Youngjae, almost making Jinyoung feel like everything was alright, lifting the tension from his shoulders and the stress from his mind. 

Mark smiled at him.

"Goodluck, Jinyoung."

Jinyoung realized many things at that moment.

'That's not how it was supposed to go' was not one of them, dancing for strangers with Mark's kiss present and heavy on both his skin and mind.

That was definitely _not_ how it was supposed to go.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this story is gross and awfully written and this chapter is terrible but i wanted to finish the most irregular fanfic of my life and i promise i will stop second guessing myself and finish this story by the end of this month because im tired of it but!!!! thank you for reading and sorry that you have to go through this lmao tell me what u think


	9. Chapter Nine.

 

 

-

Jaebum had known Jinyoung for over a decade, and he still wondered if his sexuality was a coping mechanism of sorts or if it was just in his nature to tease others. Overtime he had seen different sides of his friends that supported both ideas - when he was overcompensating, working extra hours after someone said something mean to him, and the times he got yelled at and he laughed it off. Unimpressed, he knew his worth and that weighted more than any words any stranger had to spare for him. 

He was inclined to believe Jinyoung's own words though, which were literally  _'I love nobody more than I love myself!'_ , and Jaebum thought that it was a very good philosophy to live by.

Even so, one thing was for certain, and that was that Jinyoung took a kick out of being difficult and making Jaebum's life as hard for him as possible. So when Jaebum got a text from his father telling him he was going to come over that next day, Jaebum's mood dived under zero degrees celsius, and on top of that he caught Mark and Jinyoung kissing in the room Jinyoung fucked strangers in.

Basically, Jaebum was stressed out.

"Don't worry babe." Youngjae told him, giving his boyfriend a shoulder massage while every client and dancer was inside the club, leaving the front of the house completely free for Jaebum to bang his forehead against the bar without anyone asking him what his problem was.

"You've never seen my dad, he'll find a way to fuck me over in the few hours he spends here," Jaebum said. "Jinyoung knows, but he's an idiot."

"Hmm," Youngjae kneaded a little harder, making Jaebum gasp in both relief and pain. "At best he'll leave quickly, right?" He waited for Jaebum to nod. "Where's your mother, anyway?"

This made Jaebum sigh again, less sad and much more desperate and at loss similarly to how he felt when Jinyoung helped out with cleaning and knocked over an entire line of clean glasses on the floor. He sighed for a third time remembering this.

"If there was a reality show called _Real Gangster Wives of California_ she'd be on it," Jaebum explained. "She's a total nutjob. Just like my father. They're really meant for each other - everyone was scared of me in school because of them. Except Jinyoung, but that's because he's insane just like them."

This interested Youngjae, who despite being his boyfriend, didn't know a lot about his Jaebum's life because in his words, _the future is more important_. He asked him why Jinyoung wasn't scared of him.

"I just told you, he's crazy just like my parents," Jaebum said, leaning in Youngjae's touch. "He sat behind me in class and kept poking me with his pen asking me what page we're on, and then he'd start complaining about the teachers."

Youngjae grinned, brushing the hair out of his boyfriends eyes. "Then he became your only friend?"

Jaebum nodded. "I guess. But I was his only friend too, you know, when we were older everyone just wanted to get in his pants and he always came to my house to complain about it - he wasn't at all impressed by the fact that there were bodyguards in my house or that it was full of my fathers business friends all the time."

"And _you_ didn't want to get in his pants when you were older?" Youngjae asked, kissing his forehead.

Jaebum smiled in Youngjae's kiss, not opening his eyes.

"Youngjae, what kind of question is that?"

"You can be honest." Youngjae assured him.

"It was hard _not_ to want to get in his pants," Jaebum said. "He's always been so sexually mature, and he grew up a lot faster than the rest of the boys. I would have never actually acted on it."

Youngjae hummed, kissing Jaebum on the lips this time.

"I told you to be honest, Jaebum."

 

-

 

Jinyoung liked his job. Or better said, he never disliked it.

There was no reason for him to, after all, _he_ made the rules, decided what could be done and what couldn't, decided where he could be touched and kiss and groped and where not. Despite his complaints, Jinyoung could always count on Jaebum if things went south.

And things _did_ go south. Mostly when Jinyoung was liking his job a little bit less (but still not disliking it) and let life get to him. His money was easy money, he had countless, nameless men touch his body, he was used for their pleasure - that kind of stuff.

Jaebum and Jinyoung had known each other for so long that they have become attuned to each others feelings. When Jinyoung was feeling that way, Jaebum always put his hand on his shoulders and told him to _relax_ , that he's _got this_ , that _he's the one in control, not the clients._

Jinyoung would realize that he was right. Remember what got him so far in the first place - love and respect for himself, which had nothing to do with how many men he slept with in exchange for money. Sometimes, however, Jaebum's words sounded a little to hollow in his ears and Jinyoung didn't quiet catch the meaning before he had to go to a room and take someone's belt off.

Jinyoung liked his job, but sometimes he liked it a little less.

Not a night goes by where he gets ready get on the stage and _doesn't_ think about one of the worst experiences of his life. About how it could happen again. About how it could have ended up. It was a night so sewed into the back of his mind that it became a part of it - it was the first time in which Jinyoung could admit to you that yes, he was scared, _hopelessly_ scared, and that he could have, would have, died if it weren't for Jaebum.

It was the main reason Jaebum begged Jinyoung to stop working at the club. Or at the very least stop doing after hours. Jinyoung, however, stampeded through the experience and didn't take a break when Jaebum expected him to rest at home. That was, until the gasoline ran out and Jinyoung admitted that he was tired and couldn't run any longer. It was when he decided to take less days a week, focus more on school before his job consumed him.

Jaebum wasn't sure what Jinyoung's _worst experiences in life_ list looked like, but he was sure that that night was part of it.

Jaebum was twenty two when he took the strangers money and wrote his name down on the agenda. Jinyoung was twenty one and full of snark when he greeted the man - dressed classy but without a suit and not looking that much older than himself, dyed blonde hair and Jinyoung felt that something was off the second he stepped in his room.

It was odd. The man didn't start touching him, nor did he ask to be touched. He sat down on the same bed Jinyoung was going to kiss Mark in months after that, and they talked, they talked and Jinyoung got carried away by how nice the man was being. He was younger than most clients, took care of himself better than most clients, didn't drown himself in expensive cologne like most clients.

He made Jinyoung chuckle a couple of times - here and there - before he made him blush, and just like that, his time was over and he didn't make Jinyoung's body feel warm, but touched his soul instead.

Which was how it happened, two days turned into three, four into a week, Jinyoung was starting to expect something from this. Was going to the club with a person in mind. It was dangerous, a little bit movie-like, but if the boy was going to do something bad, he would have done it already, right?

Jinyoung was terribly mistaken. It was the third week and fourth day when the boy didn't greet Jinyoung with a kind smile like he usually did, but started kissing him roughly instead, touching, groping like everyone else did, and then the switch turned and the man started shouting at him, forcing Jinyoung to look at him.

"I'm going to kill you," He kept repeating while he smacked Jinyoung's hand away from the desk next to the bed. "I'm going to kill you and nobody is going to care." He grabbed his throat, pulled his hair and kept asking him questions like 'is this what you're into? Is this how you get fucked?' before he spread his legs, grabbed even harder and Jinyoung lost consciousness, vision going black from the oxygen getting cut.

The next best thing he remembers was Jaebum having cut up knuckles and Jaebum bursting out in tears when Jinyoung had the energy to frown at him and asking what happened. Jinyoung woke up to an image in the mirror that wasn't his, bruises on his skin and a mark around his neck, his back aching supiciously, when Jinyoung realized what happened. He woke up in a hospital bed and the nurse told him that he could suffer severe trauma because he 'hit his head really hard', because they couldn't possibly tell the doctors the truth of what had happened and what Jinyoung didn't know happened.

He wondered if the man forced himself on him. Wondered if Jaebum arrived too late.

These thoughts ate him up insde. He got scared, a little paranoid. He remembered the sharp shouts, and everyday remembered a little bit more of what happened - the things the man called him. 

He always thought about it, always thought about how Jaebum thought about it. They put rules: Jinyoung had to tell Jaebum everything that was going to happen, and they installed cameras, the third rule was no repeated customers.

Jinyoung knew that Jaebum had good reason to be mean to Mark. Jaebum was worried sick that he was going to break Jinyoung both physically and mentally like the first guy did - Jinyoung didn't eat for days, but worked extra hours until Jaebum begged him to stop and Jinyoung started pushing and kicking him when Jaebum grabbed his wrist to take him with him.

It took a while, but Jinyoung decided that he was going to be in complete control of everything. Which was how, every next time that a client was being especially rude, Jinyoung clicked the red button under the bed and between him and Jaebum, they would kick the man out and then share a drink and laugh about it.

It was a good system, that was, until Mark broke it.

 

-

 

Jinyoung blames it on the surprise. It was the one person in the room who reeked of money more than the others did, and Jinyoung completely expected it when the older man he most swayed his hips on asked Jaebum about the _extra services_ the club offered.

Jinyoung had an eye for money after all. And after the first few seconds of self-doubt and memories, Jinyoung completely transformed the second he stepped on stage. Sometimes with socks, sometimes without - sometimes with heels when he was feeling special, made the crowd feel special.

The man did nothing wrong. He paid beforehand, walked into the room and gave Jinyoung some short talk before Jinyoung got on his knees. No, the surprise came when Jinyoung was done with it, seven minutes in, and the man grabbed him to kiss him.

Jinyoung wasn't against kissing on the job, but this time it felt like a violation of sorts. The mans breath hit his lips and Jinyoung's brain shortcicuited, alarm bells going off before he pushed the man away and accidentally smacked him against the wall.

Everyone at the front could hear this, the walls weren't that thick after all, and Jinyoung barely registered it when Jaebum dragged the man out, the man looking genuinely sorry about it, and Jinyoung didn't feel it when Youngjae caressed his arms and asked him what was wrong.

Jinyoung was confused. Out of his comfort zone. He had never felt that way before, never felt so uncomfortable with kissing someone. The confusion turned into anger the second Jaebum came back and worriedly asked Jinyoung what was up he yelled at him.

"Jesus Christ," He yelled. "You're not my dad, Jaebum, get off my back!" 

Which was when he turned around and grabbed his jacket and exited the club without taking his make-up off.

  
-

 

Yes, Mark will admit that he went to the club at least sixty seven minutes earlier than he was supposed to just in case he was going to miss Jinyoung on the way. He admitted that _maybe_  it was a little weird for him to be leaning against the dirty brick wall by the back alley like that, practically begging thughs to come and rob him off the bit of money he had.

Which was exactly _why_ Mark started snoozing while standing up. Arms crossed and extra large sweater tucking him in. He was a second away from crashing on the floor when he heard a loud bang next to him, and he barely realized that Jinyoung was already walking out before he had the chance to greet him.

Jinyoung seemed to know that he was there, however, and Mark was taken back to the first night Mark walked him home. Like a puppy, two steps behind the older boy, and the older boy doing his best to ignore him.

"I'm _not_ in the mood, Mark."

Mark walked fasted, finally catching up to him. "What happened?"

Jinyoung sighed, the frown on his face giving his feelings away. He was regretting. _What_ he was regretting Mark did not know, but he wanted to find out. So he kept insisting, kept walking faster and they had long since passed the snackbar Mark thought Jinyoung wanted to go to, and he was confused.

Until he grabbed Jinyoung's wrist, his intention being to slow him down and by direct consequence speed up his own heart. Jinyoung froze for a second before he wriggled his arm out of Mark's grip which was stronger than he intended it to be.

Jinyoung turned around, looking up at Mark with big puppy eyes, mouth opening and then closing with the words he wanted to say but his heart didn't let him pronounce. _Leave me alone, you're annoying, get lost, stop being so nice to me._

He looked at the floor and Mark didn't let go of his wrist.

"It's alright, Jinyoungie." Mark said, and Jinyoung knew that it would have been way to easy to believe him. Which was when Mark leaned over and planted a short, reassuring kiss on his forehead, brushing Jinyoung's hair out of his face before he did it.

Jinyoung's tomach twisted and turned. He wondered if it was out of disgust or the butterflies wanting to get out. Either way, he wanted to throw up.

"I'll leave if you want." Mark whispered. And there it was - an opportunity to end it all. Mark was not going to judge him (not that Jinyoung would have cared if he did, he swears) and it was the easiest, fastest way to stop the turbulent emotions threatening to leak out on the concrete.

But Jinyoung didn't want him to leave. That was the first time Jinyoung admitted to it - not because he wanted to, but because he couldn't fool himself much longer. He was attracted to Mark, he wanted to get to know Mark, he wanted Mark to get to know him.

A few seconds which felt like hours passed and Mark's expression quietly changed into one of mild sadness as he turned around on his way to leave. Which was exactly when he felt something - someone - tug on his sweater, stretching it over his hands because it was too big for his skinny body.

"Do you," He said, looking up at Mark with hooded eyes. "Do you want to come up to my apartment?"

 

  
-

 

Mark was a little bit startled when he stepped into Jinyoung's place and found out that he slept on a bed and not on top of warm, fluffy light pink clouds like angels were supposed to. He saw cereal boxes by the kitchen table, empty water bottles by the computer and the dishes were piling up.

Jinyoung's apartment was small but in Mark's opinion nothing was going to be good enough for him unless he lived in a palace like he rightfully deserved. That or he briefly forgot that Jinyoung was a real person living in his plane of existence, who paid real rent and who's bed creaked like everyone else's.

It was startling. Mark was a little mad that Jackson had seen it before he had.

Jinyoung interrupted his thoughts with a cup of water and an awkward smile that was so unlike him, but looked so pretty as he blushed light pink and he licked his lips more than he normally would - kitchen lights flickering and neighbours having an argument downstairs.

Something about how the woman didn't love the man anymore, and something about how the man was fed up with her.

"It's tap water." Jinyoung said, like it actually mattered, and he sat down by the kitchen table expecting Mark to sit down with him.

"How's your project going?" Jinyoung continued to ask, fingering the rip of his cup, uncomfortable with the pleasant buzz he was in, comfortable with seeing Mark in his kitchen - like he was part of the picture next to the broken fridge and magnets Jaebum bought abroad. "The summer is almost over so you're probably almost finished, right?"

"Yeah I guess." Mark blushed, realizing that he was right. That his lie wasn't really going to hold up any longer but that he couldn't possibly tell Jinyoung that because he would betrayed and hurt.

"What's the concept even about?" Jinyoung asked curiously, his childhood love for old cinema overtaking the distressing feeling in his tummy.

"Sorry?" Mark didn't know what he meant by concept. He didn't actually think it through - sure he watched the tapes over and over again, even imagined how he would edit them to make it look even more artsy than it already was, but he didn't think of a concept.

"You know," Jinyoung smiled, Mark didn't. "Concept. Like, is there a story behind it, or are you one of those _style over substance_ types?"

"No," Mark said. "I mean, films should look nice, right?"

" _Insightful_ ," Jinyoung laughed loudly and Mark thought that it was the prettiest sight he had ever seen. "So you're more of a Wong Kar Wai person?"

Mark immediately chirped up at this because he finally knew what Jinyoung was talking about. Apart from rewatching _Snow White_ every night when he was a kid, his father had a big collection of artsy asian classics, such as In _The Mood For Love_ which Mark tried to watch and fell asleep to.

"You think he's style over substance?"

Jinyoung scoffed, like the suggestion of Wong Kar Wai being anything _but_ style over substance offended him. "Of _course_ he is. But it's okay because the style is stunning."

"You would know," Mark said, only getting embarassed when Jinyoung giggled. "I think I just want to make something pretty, and you're pretty, and the club is pretty."

Jinyoung hummed, finally gulping down his water.

"So your concept is Park Jinyoung?"

Mark almost let his glass fall on the floor and maybe cut his hands while he picked it up and die on the spot on the tiles of Jinyoung's, _Park_ Jinyoung's and Jaebum's kitchen.

"That's your full name?"

Jinyoung nodded. Mark was overwhelmed. Park Jinyoung, Park Jinyoung, he repeated the name until it turned bitter in his mouth and he had to swallow it down. Park Jinyoung, that was his full name.

He almost didn't realize that Jinyoung asked him what _his_ full name was.

"Mark Tuan," He quickly answered. "Actually, it's Mark Yien Tuan."

"That's a nice name," Jinyoung nodded. "So Mark Yien Tuan, style over substance, avid Wong Kar Wai fan and Park Jinyoung admirer, do you want to record the next part of your film?"

 

-

 

Stripping meant to deprive of covering. With that definition in mind, Jinyoung doesn't think that you could really call him a stripper. He was always covering something, somehow, whether it was his socks or the concelear covering up the imperfections that Mark loved so much.

He was covering the times he wanted to punch his clients in the face and he was covering the times he wanted to laugh out loud because it was not the appropriate thing to do - the clients might have gotten offended if he did that.

When Jinyoung took Mark's hand and guided him to his room, he felt like he was ready to strip for the first time ever. He put Mark's hand on his chest as he twirled around in his room, smile brighter than the dim desklamp next to his bed. Mark was in awe.

The room was dimly lit orange. The closet was big and dark brown, different shades of red clothes thrown over the wooden chair, shoes thrown under his bed the same way Mark threw his there.

Mark was about to ask Jinyoung what he was doing (he would have let Jinyoung done anything, everything he wanted) when Jinyoung lightly pushed Mark on the bed, telling him to back up and take his camera out while Jinyoung lowered the brightness of the lamp even more.

"I'm going to take my clothes off for you," Jinyoung declared, getting on the bed and sitting on his knees. "And you are going to film me."

Mark gasped, legs automatically crossing at the mere thought of Jinyoung taking his clothes off right in front of him, for him, but then something changed. It was a short moment, it was Jinyoung putting one hand on his knee and the other on his hands.

"Relax, sweetheart." Jinyoung said, sincerely amused at how bashful Mark was reacting. He was comfortable, and in turn, made Mark feel comfortable with what was about to happen.

Which was when Jinyoung closed the distance between them and kissed Mark, melting into each other like butter when Mark kissed back like they had done before - except better. They were comfortable, it wasn't desperate, it wasn't on a rush of making up for something.

They were comfortable, and Mark's nerves calmed down almost as fast as they spiked up again when Jinyoung separated a few centimeters, looking at Mark's lips, and Mark un turn looking at his.

"You're such a good kisser," Jinyoung whispered, patting Mark's hands. "Now turn your camera on."

So Mark turned his camera on, his breath noticeably louder, lips glimmering wet and a familiar warmth making him feel fuzzy starting from his abdomen as he focused the camera on Jinyoung.

It was out of focus, sometimes Mark moved too much and you couldn't see Jinyoung's face - it made it look more authentic and real when Jinyoung slowly unbuckled his belt and threw it on the floor. He was stripping for Mark, with every definition of the word.

Leaving himself bare in front of the camera.

Which was when he slowly, excruciatingly slowly started to take his jeans off. Peeling it down his legs like he was a virgin waiting for some type of validation, some type of confirmation that he was good enough. Jinyoung knew that he was good enough.

Even so, for some reason, it felt like he needed Mark to reassure him through it.

"You're so pretty," He said, the camera not nearly capturing Jinyoung's stunning smile at that. "Jinyoung, you're so pretty."

"And _you're_ corny, mister." Jinyoung smiled.

His jeans were on the floor, so he took a break to go on his knees and appreciate what was in front of him. He stretched his arms, lift his boxer shorts up just a little more to his hips so it looked like they were bigger and his waist was smaller than it already was when he lift up his shirt.

Mark looked so funny stuffed in his oversized sweater, holding the camera with his hoodie up, thrown back in a mountain of pillows while Jinyoung was almost, almost stripping between his open legs - one leg propped up and the other straight.

Next was his shirt, and Mark's breath got caught in his throat the second he pulled it up and playfully threw it at him, smiling bashfully, sneaky reminiscent of a child who had done a harmless prank. Jinyoung asked him what he thought.

"Turn around." Mark softly ordered, and Jinyoung gladly obliged. Which was the absolute worst decision he could have made, because Jinyoung's ass was plump in his boxers, his back muscles defined but not necessarily big. He had curves where no man should have them, and Mark lost the game he didn't know he was playing.

Coincidentally, Jinyoung lost his aswell.

"Tell me how pretty I am."

"Prettiest of them all."

"Even without make-up?"

"Even without make up."

"Even if I push you away?"

"I don't mind."

Jinyoung smiled.

"That's enough for the video, sweetheart."

So he turned it off, and with that, Jinyoung snatched it from his hand and put it by the desk next to them. He laid on top of Mark's fully clothed body with his barely clothed one. He was happy, he was satisfied, he accepted Mark's love - he was ready to learn the rhytmn of his heart.

Which was why he kissed him again, and they spent a good two hours doing nothing but lazy kissing, holding each other, Mark getting drunk off of his skin, Mark brushing the hair out of his eyes before Jinyoung softly laughed and they started kissing again.

They talked about things. Little things and bigger things. Jinyoung told him when his birthday was, April 29th, and Mark told him that his favourite food was the five dollar pizza plus coke deal from the local Turkish pizzeria.

Jinyoung told Mark about his parents, about how they were a humble couple that didn't have a lot but never seemed like they needed more than that. Jinyoung didn't know if he envied or pitied it, didn't know if he was corrupt or if they got comfortable. Mark listened - Jinyoung thought that he was a really good listener, and Mark eventually told him about his mother and about how she sends him a card once a year with money and pictures of Cuba.

They talked and kissed for so long that they lost track of time. Initially Jinyoung wanted to send Mark away, but at that moment, he decided to be selfish and keep him with him. So he put the covers over their bodies when Mark took his sweater off, and they spooned in their sleep, Mark throwing his arm over Jinyoung's shoulders.

When Jaebum came home and opened the door to Jinyoung's room, the two of them were far gone in their sleep. Dreaming about nothing, their reality soaked all their dreams up, anyway.

 

-

 

It wasn't the scent of bacon and eggs that woke them up. It wasn't Jinyoung's alarm either, because he didn't have on in the first place. It also wasn't the neighbours fighting, nor was it Jaebum banging on their door telling them that it was noon and they had to wake up.

No, instead what woke them up was an older man going through papers on Jinyoung's desk, and Jinyoung was sure that he was dreaming it when his vision was still blurry and hazy after opening his eyes.

Which was when he sat straight, turning his world vertically immediately, bowing awkwardly from the bed which didn't really work out well and startling Mark in the process of it, moaning about five more minutes, please.

Jinyoung wasn't listening. The older man, dressed with class but not in a suit, expensive watch hanging on his wrist intimidatingly, looking not a day older than fourty-five and being awfully handsome, turned around and raised an eyebrow in a way that Jinyoung felt was so familiar.

From the eyes to the hair to his build. He was identical to Jaebum, just a more dangerous, more polished older version of him.

"I'm so sorry," Was the first thing Jinyoung had to say, Mark turning around and wrapping his arms around Jinyoung's waist without opening his eyes, nuzzling his nose in his back. "Jaebum didn't tell me you were going to come here."

Mr.Im smiled kindly, flipping through a couple more papers before deciding which ones he needed.

"Don't mind me, Jinyoung." He said, curiously looking over at Mark and what he could make of his face and slim hands around his body.

Jinyoung was floored at the fact that Jaebum's father even knew his name. He noticed this, apparently, and Jinyoung shouldn't have been surprised since it was literally his job to read people, but he was.

"You were Jaebum's friend, right? From middleschool?"

Which was when Mark finally yawned and sat straight, ready to ask Jinyoung for a good reason as to why they should be awake at that time in the weekend. Mr.Im looked over at him, just to remember his face for future reference, and Jinyoung quickly nodded and said that he was.

His father left the room, and just like that, Jinyoung did too. But not before sushing Mark and telling him stay in bed until Jinyoung told him that the coast was clear. Mark didn't really get - but he didn't care enough to figure it out, so he fell back on the pillows and with that, fell back to sleep.

 

-

 

Jinyoung shoved Jaebum back against the kitchen wall after closing the door, sweatpants and Mark's sweater on (no specific reason, he swears, it was the first thing he saw) and fisted his hands in Jaebum's shirt.

"Im Jaebum," He whispered. "Why the _fuck_ didn't you tell me your father was going to be here?"

Jaebum scoffed. "Fuck off, I was going to tell you but you were busy being asleep with a teenager - what the fuck was that about?"

" _That_ has nothing to do with _this_ ," Jinyoung whispered as loudly as he could, and they were stupid to think that Mr.Im didn't think something funny was going on in the kitchen. "Why is he here?"

"You're wrong for this," Jaebum almost swears, grabbing Jinyoung's hand which was holding his collar and pushing him away. "You don't know what you're getting yourself into."

"Fuck off Jaebum," Jinyoung said. "We can talk about that later."

Jaebum finally gave in. "Fine. I have no clue why he's here, you know he appears whenever he feels like it and ruins my life in one way or the other."

"That's not true, your dad is a nice man." Jinyoung pouted, which was the exact moment when Jaebum's father walked into the kitchen, looking a little surprised by how close his son and his friend were to each other pinned against the wall in a closed room.

"Jaebum, I'm going to the hotel." He said, and Jaebum wasn't going to say anything back but Jinyoung awkward kneed him between the legs and forced him go and take him down to the taxi like a good son. His father seemed pleasantly amused by this exchange even if Jaebum looked like he was having a very hard time with it. 

"See you tonight!" Jinyoung said over excitedly, waving at the father and son before running back to his room and urging Mark to get dressed and get out of the apartment as soon as possible before Jaebum came back up and potentially gave them both a speech about how wrong all of this is. Mark was dazed, confused, and happily surprised to realize that Jinyoung was the one waking him up.

"You need to get out." Jinyoung said, trying to peel Mark off his bed but realizing that he was much heavier than he looked.

"Why?" 

Jinyoung didn't answer him. Nor gave him a chance to wash his face or brush his teeth but in his opinion he looked amazing either way so it didn't really matter when he finally managed to get Mark out of bed and pushed him to their door, nervously expecting Jaebum to come up any minute now.

"Will I see you tonight?" Mark pouted, and Jinyoung softened up.

He kissed him. "Of course, baby."

He had no idea what he just got himself into.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> idk if this chapter seemed awkward or not but I had a lot of fun writing it tbh! it was going to be longer but it's already 5k words long so I decided to cut it. I hope you enjoy your false sense of happiness because things are going to downhill, fast. (Don't worry about it too much lol)
> 
> Thank you for reading and tell me what you think!!


	10. Chapter Ten.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter was a lot better in my head

Considering it all, Jinyoung had seen it coming when the rest of the day played out like a slow song sprayed with sixties movie white noise on top of it. It was sunny and warm everywhere except in their apartment - actually, that’s a lie, Jaebum’s hands were clammy and his shirt stuck to his chest and briefly considered shaving his hair off as if that would solve all of his problems, but the point stands. 

Inside their apartment, a bad cloud of tension weighted down the day. Jinyoung wasn’t a meteorologist, but he didn’t have to be one to know that he caused the bad weather. He had broken their number one rule, and now he was going to face the consequences.

It started with a cold shower. Both a literal and a figurative one, because the summer was so hot and dense that Jinyoung needed the freezing water on his body to cool him down, but also because Jaebum didn’t speak to Jinyoung even when he made an attempt. It was useless. 

Jinyoung was starting to feel like a scolded child. Except he wasn’t a child.

Nor was he being scolded. 

After a few hours of Jinyoung trying to concentrate on the film he was watching ('Gentlemen Prefer Blondes', starring Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russel) and Jaebum quietly making dinner with the radio turned off (Chorizo salad with avocado chopped into it, along with onions and tomato) they walked together to the club and instead of nagging Jinyoung to help him prepare the bar, he told him not to worry about it and sit down instead. Jinyoung was a little offended.

Finally, the yelling began. Exactly two hours and twenty-two minutes before the bar officially opened, and with Youngjae throwing out the trash because he knew better than to meddle in Jaebum-Jinyoung business. 

“Are you two dating?” Was his first, relatively calm and cup-cleaning question.

“No.” Jinyoung gulped.

“Then why?” He yelled this time, smacking the cup on the bar, Jinyoung afraid that he had broken it. He didn't.

“Why do you even care so much?” Jinyoung bit back, annoyed with Jaebum’s tone, annoyed with how he tried to talk to him the entire day and got ignored for it. Annoyed with how he was expected to answer Jaebum despite all of that. Annoyed that it annoyed him in the first place.

“Jeez, I wonder why, Jinyoung,” Jaebum said. “It’s not like something just like this has happened before, right? Not like we swore to never get involved with our clients after that one, no, it couldn’t possibly be that, could it?”

Jinyoung bit the insides of his cheek. “Mind your business.”

“No I won’t,” Jaebum responded immediately, his voice lowering a few octaves to the point Jinyoung could barely understand him. “Because ever since that night I’ve been scared to death that I’ll lose you someday,” It felt like the cups trembled with the impact of his words, and Jinyoung snapped up to look at his bestfriend with an almost fearful look in his eyes. He was so sincere, so sincerely afraid that something was going to happen to Jinyoung, that he opened his mouth to respond, but Jaebum was faster.

“Don’t tell me you’ve actually _fallen_ for him, Jinyoungie?”

His words dripped with concern, but at the same time Jinyoung recognized the hint of surrender, a taste of opportunity and a chance of closure. Jaebum would know whether or not he was telling the truth regardless of his answer, so Jinyoung could have very easily looked up to him, smile and say, _yes, I think I've fallen for him,_ and Jaebum would understand. The words tasted bitter sweet in his mouth until they turned sour, and Jinyoung didn't like the switch that turned on in him at that exact moment. Protect, it said, protect protect and protect.

“Aren’t you just _jealous?_ ” Jinyoung regretted the words the second they escaped his mouth. Jaebum widened his eyes, shocked.

“Excuse me?” Jaebum said, it wasn’t a question.

“I mean we all know you were into me a year or two ago," Jinyoung said, nervously fingering the rim of the cup. "Who’s to say something has changed?”

It took Jaebum a few seconds to fully understand what Jinyoung was saying. No, he understood him perfectly well, understood every word both separately and in combination with each other, but it was the final sentence that didn't add up in Jaebum's head. He couldn't believe Jinyoung of all people would bring something so personal up, something so from the past that Jaebum, although never forgotten, already got over. Youngjae could have heard all of it. Jaebum hoped Youngjae didn't hear all of it.

“That’s low,” He said, looking down at his hands washing the cups. “That’s so low.”

It threw Jinyoung back to two summers prior to that moment. Before either of them started working at the club and nights of cicadas becoming the background music of their youth and watermelon discounts the imagery of their summer days. Of their first year living together, full of take-out boxes on their coffee table and falling asleep on the couch with the television on every other night. 

It was no secret that Jinyoung had a lot of admirers. It had always been that way, and Jaebum had the responsibility of standing by and keep an eye out on Jinyoung. Mostly though, Jinyoung only needed him to talk smack about the boys that wanted to get in his pants, and Jaebum had to agree even if he didn't know them personally.

Jaebum briefly remembered the time an older, charming man chatted Jaebum up instead, completely ignoring Jinyoung standing by his side. He spoke to him so nice, so sweetly and Jaebum knew that in his eyes, he was nothing but a pretty boy that would make for good decoration around his arm. Even so, Jaebum basked in the attention a little, if just for the drinks he was bought, but Jinyoung got jealous and started making a fuss. That night was the first time they had a big fight, Jaebum calling Jinyoung a hypocrite and Jinyoung not talking to him for the whole night. They made up in the morning.

Things changed. Jaebum wasn’t sure what triggered it.

Jaebum started to mix his feelings for Jinyoung with everyone elses feelings for Jinyoung. They saw his so majestically, so deitiful, and that infatuation pinched and dripped in Jaebum’s already skewed perception of his childhood friend who never kissed on the first date. Jaebum never took advantage of Jinyoung, even if he was curious about Jinyoung.

That summer was toxic in that sense. Surrounded completely by Jinyoung and people who wanted to be completely surrounded by Jinyoung. Jaebum tricked himself into going after him took his hand in public and opened doors for him, put his jacket over his shoulders and complimented him on the daily. Their friends thought they were a couple, even Youngjae thought that they were, but in reality, they hadn't even kissed.

Even if Jaebum always wanted to.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that.” Jinyoung stuttered.

“No, you’re right,” Jaebum said. “I did like you. Don’t apologize.”

Jinyoung felt uncomfortable like that, so he shuffled his feet and looked down at his hands when Jaebum told him that he didn’t understand why Jinyoung would do something so reckless.

Jaebum was hurting because of him. He betrayed himself and let feelings get in the way of their promise. Jinyoung wasn’t the important one here, whether he adored every second with Mark wasn’t the point. This was bigger than him, bigger than them, this was playing in a mob sindicate playground. Jinyoung made his mind up.

“You don’t need to worry,” He said, standing up. “Because he pays me. He’s just like any other client. I won’t bring him to our place anymore.”

And they didn’t say anything for the rest of the night after that, even if Jaebum’s throat was itching to tell Jinyoung he knew he was lying. Jinyoung cleaned up with his head hanging low, drinking coca-cola instead of alcohol, and the silence was so loud that Jaebum had to cover his ears. Which was when Youngjae came back with lemons and kissed him.

It was okay. They were going to be fine. 

The doorbell dingled and Mr.Im walked through it with two of his undercover bodyguards, which he never actually needed but always had with him in case he did. The clients started coming in, ordered their drinks and making their way to the performance hall. Jinyoung did his make-up better than ever that night, and finally, the music began.

At 23:45, Mark Tuan walked in.

 

-

 

At 21:00, Mark ran to their hideout and as became custom on Fridays, his friends were sitting in a circle eating pizza and listening to music with the broken fan giving them minimal relief from the heat. In case you were wondering how they got away with ordering pizza in their hideout - they didn’t, Jackson brought them from his workplace after flirting with the lady in charge who fell for his whims.

“How was work?” Mark asked, immediately taking his shoes off and sitting on the couch next to Jackson. 

“I’m glad you asked, Mark, you see, your bestfriend, which is me, got invited to a college party run by pretty college girls.” Jackson said proudly, and clearly expected Mark to be impressed - which he normally would have been, except this time he wasn’t. He nodded, and with this lukewarm reaction Jackson snatched his pizza slice away.

“Why yes Mark, _of course_ you can tag along as my sidekick.” He said, biting in the cheese and Mark rolled his eyes, saying he already made plans with the love of his life.

“What is this, Mark turning down a party?” BamBam said, and Mark only then noticed that he was rolling a joint on Yugyeom’s back.

“I’m going to ask him out tonight.” Mark declared, which was exactly when Yugyeom looked his way and almost threw the weed on the floor, making all three of them yell in unision. 

“Sorry.” Yugyeom sheepishly said, and BamBam knocked his head back down on the pillows and told him to _be a good table, damn it._

“I’m a little mad we still don’t properly know him yet,” BamBam said, finally finishing the joint and holding it up for everyone to see. “I suppose you don’t want any of this anymore, then, mister changed man?”

“Come here you.” Mark laughed, and leaped forward to take the joint between his fingers and have the honor to lit it up and take the first hit. It was tradition, so they put towels under the door to hotbox in their little hideout. After finishing the first, they made a second one.

At 23:00, Mark stumbled out sated, and made his way to his house to change shoes and jacket, his sister giving him a knowing look which basically told him to wash the dishes if he didn’t want her telling on their father that he was smoking.

Even in love, Mark realized, some things _never_ change.

 

-

 

The situation was almost comical. Mark being high as a kite (hadn’t been high in one and a half week when normally he’d finish a joint by himself, half in the morning and the other half at night, everyday) and Jaebum’s father sitting by the corner of the bar, sipping on a whiskey coke looking impossibly more sophisticated than he did in the morning with a black suit and styled up hair.

At first, Mark didn’t notice him. At first, Mark assumed that everything was sugar sweet good and he sat down in front of Youngjae smiling up at him because everyone deserved a smile while they were working.

He didn’t feel the weight of the tension. Didn’t see Jaebum looking shocked and angered that Mark was sitting there. If Mark would have gotten off his cloud, he would have seen Youngjae hold Jaebum back, and not for Mark’s sake but because his father was there.

Mob boss father. Owner of half the stripclubs in the district. Owner of two big cars and three apartments in New York, one in California by Venice Beach. Mark didn’t know any of this when the older man turned his head to look at him and asked Youngjae to make him something.

“You look familiar.” The man said, knowing perfectly well who he was.

“Oh, thanks sir!” Mark beamed, taking the Hennessey from Youngjae’s shaking fingers, everyone realizing how high Mark was at that moment. Jaebum couldn’t say anything about it.

“I’m Sohye. Do you come here often?”

If Mark read the newspapers, the name _Im Sohye_ might have sounded familiar. Be it about his mini fortune or his acts of philantrophy which Jaebum said were just a farce to give them a good public image. Mark smiled at him.

“I remember you now,” He said. “You were in Jinyoungie’s room this morning.”

Sohye nodded, said that Jaebum was his son and that he was surprised to see Mark in Jinyoung’s bed. “Are you two together?”

And he seemed like such a nice man, after all, so Mark wholeheartedly said that he wanted to confess to him that night, that he though Jinyoung was the most amazing person he had ever met, that he was so special, so magical and ethearal.

Jaebum had to go to the bathroom, Youngjae pretended not to listen.

“That’s nice.” Was all he said, and Youngjae almost frowned and asked him if that was all he was going to say, wondering if Jaebum’s father really wasn’t the bad guy he made it out to be. Mark seemed satisfied, and that was when the first round of performances ended, and he adressed Youngjae.

“Youngjae was it?” His father asked, Youngjae nodded nervously. “Could you tell Jaebum to get the bills from the office for me right now?”

“But the clients will be coming out right now.” Youngjae said, not very intimidated by Jaebum’s father, despite the looks and rumors.

“I will take care of it,” He said, already getting behind the bar. “I like to go back to my roots sometimes, it keeps me humble.” So Youngjae conceded with a quick _okay boss,_ which was when he left to collect Jaebum to go to the little office room.

Mark wasn’t paying attention. He was eagerly looking at the door, licking his lips and fumbling his feet together, Sohye got his attention suddenly, asking him if he wanted to learn something new.

“Jinyoung still needs to get dressed.” He said, and Mark reluctantly agreed, guessing it was a good way to pass the time when he stepped behind the bar next to the older man, holding a VIP cocktail menu which Mark hadn’t seen before, and a little notebook behind the counter.

“What do I do?” Mark wondered, which was when a man walked out the door and looked at them and gave them his bankcard. Sohye gave him the VIP menu, and the client didn’t even look at it before he ordered.

“Seven cherry vodka cocktails.” The man, a little older and extremely uncharming, said. Sohye told Mark to type it down, and asked the man if he wanted it separate or all together.

“Separate.” The man said, and finally, Mark charged him the money for the cocktails, giving him the ticket.

“You can get your drinks in thirty minutes.”

So the man nodded and went back to the hall. Mark looked up at Sohye, telling him that thirty minutes is a bit of a stretch for seven uncomplicated cocktails, which was when Sohye let out a short laugh. It reminded him of Jaebum.

“You don’t have a lot of space awareness, do you?” Sohye said, but necessarily in a mean way. Seeing that Mark was genuinely confused, he pointed at the menu. “Regular clients pay in cash. When someone comes in with their bank, it means they want something from the VIP menu.”

Mark nodded.

“The drinks are by order of popularity, so the menu changes every month,” He said, and then he pointed at the numbers behind the drink names. “Every hooker here is assigned a number, and that’s how the transaction happens. If you’re suspicious of the client, you can ask for their names and google them, send them away if nothing shows up, this is pretty exclusive after all.”

Which was when it finally sunk in Mark, and Youngjae walked in while he dropped the pen in the middle of writing down the numbers of the seven clients and their ordered drink. Youngjae gasped.

“W-which one is cherry coke?” Mark asked Sohye, a hint of fear in his tummy that he had never felt before in that place. A feeling he should have felt before in that place. Sohye walked away from the bar, back to the barstool.

“That will be Park Jinyoung, number one on the list.”

Mark was going to throw up. Thrown down from the clouds and into the concrete, Mark realized that he basically rented Jinyoung out to seven complete strangers with his own hands.

His face went white, his heart speeding up and banging against his chest like it wanted to run laps around the bar. He opened his mouth to say something, which was when Youngjae ripped the notebook out of Mark’s hands, looking distraught.

“Boss!” He exclaimed. “Jinyoung doesn’t take more than three clients in one night, we need to fix this.”

Sohye looked unimpressed, like he thought it was extremely funny that Youngjae had any empathy for the demands of the dancers, the merchandise, so to say. 

“You’re telling me he denied thousands of dollars in this club just because he doesn’t feel like it?” Youngjae yelped, afraid that he said something he shouldn’t have, but Sohye’s tone went warmer again. “Jinyoung will have to tell me himself then, since I’m here.”

Mark wanted to throw up.

 

-

 

Performance night. A little cologne and vaseline on his lips always did the trick. It was a Friday, easily the busiest night of the week, and Jinyoung briefly wondered if Jaebum’s father was going to be watching him. Despite what you might expect - Jinyoung was more focused than ever.

He dealt with sadness by overachieving. Thinking about it, that was the prime reason Jaebum was worried about him in the first place. If only Jinyoung knew how to sit back and be taken care of instead of taking care of, the entire Mark situation could have been easily avoided.

No, that wasn’t it. Jinyoung decided as he got on stage. Mark’s situation was an instance where Jinyoung took care of himself, by letting himself care for Mark. He lied to Jaebum - that was the issue, Jinyoung eventually guessed.

Even so, none of that was important when the red lights blinded him and he zeroed in on the front seats. Seven men in laidback clothes but their rings spoke volumes of their wealth. Jinyoung, for the first time in a long time, was deadset on making them his clients - all seven of them. 

There was competition, except that they weren’t. Jinyoung, on top of being a literature student and film lover, trilingual in English, Korean and snark, on top being a spicy food addict and being satisfied with his life, Jinyoung was still the number one hooker in _La Vie en Rose._

He owned it.

 

-

 

Owning something means that nobody will care when it breaks. Jinyoung successfully got the seven men to ask for him at the bar, but Jinyoung did not expect to see Mark looking whiter than a sheet when he went inside for a glass of water.

Mark’s head shot up to look at Jinyoung, uncertain, taken back, like he did something he shouldn’t have done, and Jinyoung’s guilt welled up inside his lungs, but he repressed it, repressed and repressed the best he could. Mark was a nobody, he was just an eager, younger-than-usual client who’s money wasn’t any cleaner.

“Jinyoung!” Mark finally said when Jinyoung bent over to get himself a little bottle of water, he looked at the boy, dressed in his usual sweater, confused.

“I will be with you later.” Jinyoung said, taking Youngjae’s notebook to write his name down, and gasping when he saw the seven numbers of those men written under his own name.

Youngjae pulled his shirt. “You don’t have to do this,” He said, Jinyoung wasn’t sure what he was reffering to. “Jaebum’s father wrote those down, but something came up and he left, we can make up an excuse.”

“No,” Jinyoung said, gulping, mesmerized by the long list. “It’s fine, I’ll do it.”

“It’s my fault, Jinyoungie,” Mark suddenly said. “I wrote those names down, I’m so sorry.”

Jinyoung frowned. “You have nothing to do with this.”

Which was when Jinyoung wrote Mark’s down under the seven others, and he turned around to go to the dressing room. Mark jumped up, hesitant for the first time in his life, and looked up to Youngjae who nodded, _go talk to him,_ he mouthed, and Mark felt a little better knowing that he had Youngjae on his side.

So he grabbed Jinyoung’s wrist when he closed the door, Jinyoung yelping and pushing him off his chest immediately. 

“What do you think you’re doing?”

“Jinyoung, _I like you_.” Mark quickly confessed while Jinyoung rubbed his wrist, suddenly looking up at the younger. Mark liked him, Mark liked him and Jinyoung liked him back but he was not going to admit that. He couldn’t, he wanted to - he didn’t.

“Get out of here, or I’ll scream,” Jinyoung warned, taking a step back when Mark took a step forward. “Mark I swear to god I’ll call Jaebum, get out.”

“What do you mean?” Mark said, confused. “Jinyoung, I don’t want you to feel bad about anything.”

“Stop being dramatic,” Jinyoung said. “This is my job.”

"I know it is," Mark said, suddenly confused and not knowing what he was going to say. "I'm sorry."

Jinyoung stared down at Mark for a second, almost feeling sorry for him. He sighed, turned around and grabbed his wrist, "Sit down on the couch," He said, and closed the door behind them while Mark reluctantly walked to the couch, his head a mess and thoughts going a mile a minute. Most of them realizing that he had been naive, most of them realizing that being a hooker wasn't all that fun, most of them thinking about all the men that had touched Jinyoung before him.

Which was when Jinyoung suddenly grabbed Mark's legs and put them on the couch, taking his shoes off, leaving him in his socks, and bent over to kiss him on the lips. 

"Relax." He whispered in his ear, continued to kiss him down his neck and Mark was exasperated, grabbing Jinyoung's shoulders to tell him to stop, to sit back, that he didn't want this to go this way, ask him where the progress has gone, tell him he was high, wonder whether this was a dream or reality. Jinyoung continued his path down vigurously until he reached his belt, taking it off with trained ease, and popping the buttons open while Jinyoung palmed him through his jeans.

"Jinyoungie," Mark gasped, arousal betraying him. "What are you doing?"

Jinyoung didn't answer. Not with the snark from the first time they kissed and not with the honesty from the second. Their third time was disconnected, unnatural, it felt wrong, but physically Mark was delighted when Jinyoung kissed his tummy (a part that always got him riled up for some reason) and before Mark could protest any more or ask Jinyoung what was up with him, he had him in his mouth, and was giving him a blowjob.

Mark's worry died on his tongue and was replaced for a deep moan. Jinyoung felt so good, so so good and Mark was just like all the other men he had bewitched just like that. Mark realized, he wasn't better than any of them, in the end he couldn't see Jinyoung for anything else but his looks, he told himself. Otherwise this wouldn't have happened the way he did, it wouldn't have felt as good as it made him feel.

Jinyoung dug his nails in his clothed thighs, gripping the base of Mark's cock with the other hand and finally making him reach his orgasm. Mark immediately pushed him away a little, in all his blushing and sweaty glory. Jinyoung felt overwhelmed by the image.

"That will be fifty dollars." Jinyoung said, but it sounded like a mumble.

"Sorry?" Mark asked, heart racing.

"Don't you _get_ it Mark?" Jinyoung yelled, grabbing his water bottle. "You're a client. You're _nothing_ special, so _stop_ following me around, you're annoying."

He half expected Mark to put up a fight and convince Jinyoung that it wasn't true. Half expected Mark to pin him down and kiss him and convince him that they were meant to be. But he didn't do anything of that, so Jinyoung dared to look up at him, only to find that Mark was already sitting straight, face twisted into something that he had never seen on the boy. Something so adult and corrupted that it felt wrong and out of place.

Jinyoung felt it in his bones when Mark stood up, turned his back on Jinyoung and grabbed his wallet.

"So I'm just a client?" Mark asked.

"I'm sorry if I made you believe you were something more, I really am." He sounded so vulnerable.

Which was the exact moment when Mark threw him a bunch of crumpled dollars, some landing on the floor and Jinyoung quickly realizing that it was a lot more than just fifty dollars. He looked up at Mark, who was looking the other way, tensed up and licking his teeth.

"Keep it," Mark said when Jinyoung was going to tell him he gave him too much. "That's for all the extra work you did, you deserve a raise."

"Ma-" Jinyoung tried to grab his wrist, but Mark had violently got himself out of his grip, almost throwing Jinyoung on the floor.

Jinyoung had been working in the sex industry for two years, but never once had he felt so humiliated than he did when he had to watch Mark leave the dressing room without giving him a sweet goodnight and goodbye and a forehead kiss. Never felt more used than when Youngjae walked in a second later, seeing Jinyoung on the floor and running towards him to make sure that he was okay. Never felt more grossed out by money than when Mark paid him for a blowjob.

The worst part of it all, Jinyoung realized, was that it wasn't Mark who had used him.

All along, it was himself who did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think this chapter was a bit of a flop, but I didn't want to take too long to update anymore so I decided to post it regardless. What do you guys think??? We're getting in the last quarter of the story and honestly?? I feel like this fanfic is a whole disorganized MESS, but I have a lot of selfish fun with it despite how bad it actually is lol
> 
> thank you for reading and tell me what you think!!


	11. Chapter Eleven.

His bed was an island and Mark rolled in the sand until he blended in with it. He sighed when the alarm went off for the fourth time in twenty minutes after turning it off for an hour - how long had it been? The blinds were down, he couldn’t tell day from night, he had postponed his alarm at least twenty times now, his hair was sticking in every direction, he felt a little gross.

With a grunt, he rolled to the right one more time to grab his phone and turned it off. He looked at the screen, squinting at the light, _nine fourty seven p.m_. Mark hadn’t left his bed in twenty four hours, but it somehow felt like more than that.

He had texts in his groupchat. Bambam, Yugyeom and Jackson asking him how his confession went with a string emojis and eggplants, which was how Mark left them on read and threw the phone to the other side of the bed, grumbling and covering his head with the pillows.

Everyone was annoying. He felt exasperated, anxious in a way he hadn’t felt since he was fourteen and throwing his dreams away for the comfort of living in the moment. His lips were chapped, he was sweaty, he heard his sister turning on the water in the bathroom.

Mark knew he should’ve stood up and try to move on with his life. Emphasis on _trying_ , but the more he thought about it the more pointless it felt. Why, _why_ should he pretend to be one thing when felt the exact opposite?

He felt hungover. Hungover on Hennessy that he didn’t pay for.

Which was when he peeked through the bed covers, focusing on a grey object sitting on his desk. It was the camera, oh, _the thousand dollar toy that Mark didn’t need anymore_. At least there was that, he thought, he didn’t ever have to tell Jinyoung that he was lying about the tapes.

It wasn’t like he was ever going to find out, after all. Mark fell asleep again, dreams about cups of Hennessy and bottles of beers by the parking lot with his friends taking him to another place.

 

-

 

That night, Jinyoung had done the unspeakable. In the middle of his third client who looked uncomfortably similar to all the others before him, Jinyoung had slapped him when he went in for a kiss. The slap almost echoed in the room, the man’s tie loose around his neck, and Jinyoung immediately gasping as if the slap woke _him_ up more than it did the man on top of him.

Which was when Jinyoung stood up, pulled his shorts up and ran out of the room to grab all of his stuff from his locker in the dressing room and told Youngjae that he had to leave.

Jaebum, apparently, was in the office calling his father. Youngjae didn’t know what to do, but Jinyoung had no space for guilt of leaving him with a slapped client and four more who hadn’t gotten what they paid for to care.

Jinyoung knew that he was in trouble. If the client had any type of influence, the club was going to be in big trouble, and all just because Jinyoung couldn’t keep his feelings in check _just_ when he tried to keep his feelings in check.

Jinyoung knew he screwed up. The control he expected to feel after metaphorically kissing Mark goodbye instead becoming instant regret.

He ran, he ran his way past the snackbar and ignored the groups of people looking at him funny, calling him names, drinking cheap beer from bottles wrapped in paperbags. He reached his apartment, and it wasn’t until he crashed on his couch when he realized two things.

One was that he was breathing, the second was that he literally just ran out the stripclub with his boss in town. He grunted, digging his face in the cushion, feeling sixteen and stupid again.

Jinyoung, unlike Mark, couldn’t fall asleep when he was feeling sad. So instead, he got undressed and put his sweatpants on, watching a movie on TV until his eyes gave up and shut on their own.

For the duration of the movie, he didn’t have to think about consequences or repercussions.

 

-

 

If Mark stood up at three p.m of the next day, it was only because his older sister barged in his room and opened the window, rolled the blinds up and told her little brother to get over whatever drama he was going through.

It wasn’t until Mark didn’t bite back as usual when she blinked and stared at the outline of his body under the covers. She stopped rolling the blinds up, and instead sat down on the bed.

“Did something happen?” She asked, and only then did Mark rise from the cover with his hoodie over his head and sleepy eyes blurring his vision, sitting straight.

“Have you ever been heartbroken before?”

His sister did her damned best not to burst out in laughter at that exact moment, but she resisted, only letting out a little chuckle before realizing that Mark was _serious_. She gave him a long, hard look.

“I’m going to get you something to eat,” She said. “And then we’re going to talk about this.”

Mark didn’t reply, but it was as good as any answer to his sibling. Which was why, seven minutes later she came back in his room with a plate of bacon and eggs and bread, and frowned when Mark was rolling a joint on his bed.

He looked up at her, almost asking permission.

“Fine,” She said, putting the plate on the table. “Just for today, and only if you share it with me, and you have to promise me you’ll go out today.”

He finally smiled and nodded. “Alright,” He softly said.

“Who broke your heart?” She asked, and Mark almost choked on the smoke.

“It’s not like you know him.”

It’s not like you know him.

Not like you know _him_.

His sister almost fell off the bed, and Mark didn’t seem to realize why she got out of her criss cross applesauce position to lean forward like Mark had just told her he summoned a demon from the demon realm and fell in love with it. Which was when he realized - his sister didn’t know he was into guys.

Which was the moment Mark realized that he didn’t know he was into guys, either.

“I mean, not like I have a problem with that,” She said, clearly doing her best to be supportive. “But this is unexpected, you know?”

“ _Tell_ me about it,” He said, passing her the joint. “I think there was always something, you know.”

“Is it Jackson?”

It was Mark’s turn to almost fall out the bed and break his neck and end up in the hospital for something his sister said. The idea was ridiculous, impossible and in Mark’s opinion, a little disgusting.

“That’s like, _incest._ ” He said.

“No it’s not?” She frowned. “Whatever then, who is it, what happened?”

Mark didn’t feel like going through the effort of lying, so he didn’t.

“His name is Park Jinyoung,” He said. “And he’s a h- _hooker_ ,” He saw the concern in his sisters face, so he asked her please not to talk about that. If he heard any complaints about Jinyoung being a hooker, he was going to lose it and jump out of the window after finishing the blunt. 

“I thought we were going somewhere, you know? I felt so good by his side, but then suddenly,” He thought about it. “Suddenly he told me I was nothing special? And it hurt me, it hurt a lot.”

His sister smiled sadly. “Maybe it’s for the best?”

“Why?”

“No offense Mark,” She said, giving him the joint. “But people in that line of work can’t really be committed you know?”

“You don’t even know him.” He said, almost regretting telling her anything. To be fair, she looked apologetic, the same way you’d look at an injured puppy. Mark was the injured puppy.

“It’s funny,” She said. “He has the same name as a guy in my art history class, we did a project together last semester - no way that guy is a hooker though.”

Mark looked at her like she just cracked the code. Of what, he didn’t know, but something clicked.

“Jinyoung is in your class?”

“No way it’s _him_ ,” She frowned. “You can’t possibly be a prostitute and a straight A student at the same time. Besides, he was really quiet and a little boring.”

“He’s taller than you,” Mark said. “And he has dark brown hair, and he has a mole near his lips and he’s always around Im Jaebum.”

“Wait,” She gasped. “Im _Jaebum?_ He’s that English major, he hooked up with my friend Jessica during freshman year, you know Jessica right?” She said, then shaking her head. “No fucking way, _that_ Park Jinyoung is a hooker?”

“And Jaebum is the bartender at the brothel, and he has a boyfriend, and his father is a scary mob boss.”

“That’s insane,” She said. “This is insane,” She said again. “Now that you mention it, I heard rumors about Jinyoung that he went on dates with older women for money, holy _shit_ , Mark.”

“That’s not true!” He insisted. “He’s much more than just that, and what does it matter how he gets his money? A job is a job, right?”

“Right,” She said. “You’re right, but I have so many questions and I know that you aren’t going to answer any of them,” He nodded, she continued. “But you’re hurt. I can see that much, I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” He said, taking the last hit. “Thanks, sis. I’ll go see the guys now.”

She nodded, standing up and smiling at him fondly, before closing the door, she said one more thing, that thing which stuck to Mark’s mind like bubblegum, and for some reason he couldn’t forget.

“Just know that if it’s meant to be, it’ll be, so let it be.”

It was the philosophy he based his life on after he turned fourteen, but at that moment, for some reason and for the first time in years,

He didn’t like the idea of letting things just _be._

For the first time, he wanted to take action.

 

-

 

Jinyoung never liked the idea of becoming his situation. Meaning, that even if things were going wrong from all angles in his life, he wasn’t going to let it dictate what he did and did not do. He wasn’t sure if it was simply how he was programmed, or because he was uncomfortable with transparency.

For example, his mother didn’t get angry a lot, but once Jinyoung burnt the chicken in the oven when he was twelve and she smacked the back of his head and told him to go to his room. Instead of crying, he left the apartment to go play with his friends like nothing happened, and by the time he came back, his mother had made him some pasta.

Overly laidback or trying to hard. Jinyoung never actually wondered where this frustrating habit came from, because sometimes he wished he could cry out loud and be selfish for a couple of hours. Either way, in the grand scheme of things, it didn’t matter that much.

Which was exactly why Jaebum was shocked when he woke up in the morning and found his bestfriend leaning his face in the palm of his hand, cereal bowl in front of him and milk spilt across the table.

Jaebum had the intention of giving Jinyoung an earful about what he had done last night and give him a detailed rundown of how he and Youngjae got threatened by the seven men who turned out to be state higher-ups, and that if this was going to spin out of control and his father was going to find out, they were screwed. Instead, he softened immediately, more worried than angry and more angry than sad.

“You should wash your hair.” Jaebum said, making his way to the counter to get his own bowl of cereals.

Jinyoung didn’t answer, instead he chewed insufferably slow, chewing, chewing until the cereals became liquid in his mouth, and he still didn’t swallow.

Jaebum bit the inside of his cheek.

“You know,” He said. “About yesterday, don’t worry about it. It’s cool.”

Jinyoung dropped his phone on the table. The screen cracked. He didn’t screech or curse or yell, but picked it up again and continued scrolling down his social media which he had already seen a million times that morning. Jaebum was starting to get exasperated.

 _I’m going to teach my kids to express their emotions,_ Jaebum thought, _just to avoid getting nutcases like Jinyoung._

He sighed. “Jinyoung,” turned around sat down in front of him, only now realizing that Jinyoung’s bowl was completly full and that he was still chewing on the same mouthful of cereal from five minutes ago, holding his head up with his hand and chapped lips. “Youngjae told me what happened with you and that kid.”

Finally, Jinyoung peeled his eyes away from his phonescreen and looked at Jaebum instead, temporarily stopping the chewing, he swallowed.

“Jaebum,” He said. “Jaebum,” He repeated, standing up and walking toward Jaebum, who stood up and was a little scared of this side of Jinyoung, stepping back. “Jaebum, what have I done?” Jinyoung suddenly cried out hugging Jaebum and rubbing his nose with his shirt, Jaebum wanted to call Youngjae to save him.

“Is it really that deep?” Jaebum asked, awkwardly patting Jinyoung’s head.

“I don’t know.”

“But I thought you knew everything.”

“Nobody ever said that,” Jinyoung sobbed exaggeratedly. “This is all your fault.”

Which was when Jaebum stopped patting his head, and instead delicately grabbed Jinyoung’s shoulders and pushed him one step back. He looked at him intensely, frowning, like he was looking for something in Jinyoung’s messy hair and face. He found it.

“Do you really like him _that_ much?”

Jinyoung nodded dramatically. “Yeah,” He said. “I think so, do I? I think I do.”

And of course, in the end, Jaebum was weak for Jinyoung. Not in a romantic way but in a friendly way, and no matter how much Jaebum scolded him, if Jinyoung wanted something then Jaebum was going to do his best to get it. So he thought about it, counted till five, and then sat back down in his chair.

“This is surreal,” He took out a cigarette and lit it up, rubbing his forehead. “You’ve actually fallen in love, that’s,” He thought about it. “That’s crazy.”

“It’s not _that_ crazy.” Jinyoung mumbled.

“For a kid who wears basketball shorts,” He exhaled the smoke. “And probably doesn’t even know how to tie his shoelaces yet,” He sighed. “You, Jinyoung, have fallen for a guy who takes you out to burger places and skateparks.”

Jinyoung nodded meekly, sitting back in his chair.

“This is some soulmate type shit, there’s no other explanation for this entire situation,” Jaebum thought out loud. “But I guess, I guess I can’t blame you?”

He couldn’t.

“Okay,” Jaebum decided, tapping his cigarette on the ashtray. “Okay so what do you want to do now, go out and find him?”

Jinyoung shook his head, telling him that he didn’t even know where he lived. In fact, he didn’t know much about Mark at all. Only that he was calming to be around, and that he was studying film and that wore shirts three times bigger than his size. He didn’t even have his number.

“In that case we’ll have to wait till he comes back to the club,” Jaebum said. “And you’ll have to talk to him. But I have to tell you something.”

Jinyoung looked up at him again.

“The club might shut down,” Jaebum sighed. “When you left yesterday, we got told that those guys are some semi-important higher ups. You know how easily they get offended right? They threatened us, so we might be in trouble, and with my father around things could get really ugly,” He stood up. “The worst part is, Youngjae told me that Mark was on reception at the time - the club’s security system is decent, but I’m worried that that kid will take the fall for us if they find him.”

“Why was he behind the bar?” Jinyoung asked quietly, confused.

“My father of course, I’m sorry,” He smiled sadly. “I doubt it’s serious though. Hopefully they were drunk and forgot about it. Maybe they’ll realize that getting involved will put them in a pinch too, you know,” He stood up and patted Jinyoung’s head again. “Don’t worry too much about it, go wash your hair, I’ll do the dishes.”

So Jinyoung nodded and made his way to the bathroom. He didn’t eat his cereals, and neither did Jaebum. He was such a lovely bestfriend, Jinyoung wondered if Jaebum ever felt that way about him.

Even so, his thoughts inevitably found their way back to Mark.

Wait it out and talk it out when he appeared, he sighed at the thought.

Was he _really_ going to come back?

 

-

 

Yes, Mark _said_ that he was going to go out and hang out with Jackson after fourty eight hours of complete isolation in his bedroom. Which might have seemed a little overboard to some, but completely justified in his eyes, but actually getting _out the door_ was a task that had never felt harder in his life.

The idea of the sunlight made Mark a little anxious. He dragged basic things like getting dressed out, and he wasn’t sure why. Was it because he spent two days in the darkness of his own room? The streets were his second home, spent more time outside than in, and Mark never understood the kids that sat in and rolled around in their bed all day, acting depressed.

Mark was a bit of an asshole in that sense, he realized.

“Wow, I’m a jerk.” He said out loud during his third attempt of turning the keys and getting out of the house, remembering the time he sided with the ‘depression is a myth’ crowd during a highschool debate.

“You are?” Someone suddenly said, and Mark got the door smacked in his face and he thought he had broken his nose and honestly, that was the only thing he needed for his life to go to shit completely.

It was his father, blissfully aware that his son was behind the door but smashing it open anyways.

“Did you get a day off again?” Mark asked, rubbing his nose. “I was just about to leave.”

“I got the whole weekend,” His father said, closing the door. “Which means you can show me exactly where and what you plan to study before the deadline next wee-”

Which was the exact moment Mark ran out the door.

Fear was the greatest motivation of mankind, after all.

 

-

 

The nerves didn’t stop racing in his bloodstream, and what used to feel like a second home with a roof over his head felt new and exciting. Mark walked circles in Jackson’s tightly decorated room (superhero posters, comics, wallscrolls, Jackson was surprisingly schooled in the subject of of being a nerd) and touched every volume of _Wonder Woman_ he had. Which was every _Wonder Woman_ comic that had ever been published.

“Please stop fidgeting?”

Mark almost jumped. “Fidgeting?” He said, laughing nervously. “Do I look nervous to you, or something?”

Jackson gave him a look. A look only certified bestfriends can give you only rivaled by the look a disappointed parent can give you. Mark knew he couldn’t get anything passed Jackson even if he wanted to.

“You’re practically bouncing up and down.” Jackson pointed out.

“Why do you have so many comics about women?” Mark suddenly asked, looking up at the ceiling.

“What?” Jackson frowned.

“I mean, like, you have _Super Woman_ but you don’t have _Super Man_ and you have _Bat Woman_ but you don’t have _Batman_ , how do you know about them if you don’t even have the comics they came from?”

“Mark you’re talking more shit than usual,” Jackson said. “My mom bought me those as a kid. That’s what you get when your mother is a feminist columnist for the _New York Times_ \- plus they’re better anyways.”

Jackson Wang’s parents were always big on social justice. Mark remembers the times he slept over as a kid and got a long lecture from his mother on the dining table as a consequence. Again, if he had read the news papers, Mark would have seen her name under many, many big articles.

“What happened, Mark?” Jackson asked sincerely, and Mark opened issue three of _Poison Ivy_ and flipped through the pages.

“I paid Jinyoung for a blowjob.”

Jackson frowned. Wondered if he heard him right. Briefly thought that he had, in fact, gone crazy. “ _Excuse me?_ ”

“I threw him sixty dollars and now I’m broke.”

“You are,” Jackson said. “ _Crazy_. What the hell happened?”

“He never saw me as something more than a client,” Mark explained. “And made me look stupid. He always ignored me though, I was being clingy. Also I didn’t tell you but that time we kissed for the first time he grabbed my wallet.”

“Well shit,” Jackson put his head on the pillow. “Well _shit_.”

“I was thinking about going back.”

Jackson sat straight again. “For what?”

“I don’t think he hates me.”

“He took advantage of you.”

“Yes but at the same time,” Mark sat down next to Jackson. “But at the same time I was unfair to him. I thought he was perfect, out of my dreams, and didn’t treat like him like an actual human being.”

“But you were always nice to him, weren’t you?”

“I haven’t ever seen him in daylight,” Mark said. “I’m starting to think he doesn’t actually exist. Maybe I’m crazy.”

“You’ve _absolutely_ gone crazy,” Jackson agreed. “But I think you need to get Jinyoung out of your system, but I also think you need to shock him a little.”

“How do I do that?”

“Give him a taste of his own medicine,” Jackson suggested. “Walk in there like you don’t know him, pay for his services and watch him react. If he carries on like usual you know it’s time to get over him.”

Mark thought it made sense. He also realized that his nerves had calmed down just by talking, but the disjointed thoughts were still scattered in his memories. It was a good idea, but in retrospect, it was also mean one.

“Forget it.” He said, suddenly feeling ashamed. 

Jackson saw that he meant it, so he dropped the topic.

Which was exactly why Mark asked himself why his feet were taking him to the club again, no less that two days later. His anxiety for leaving the house was under control, but Mark was admittedly terrified of the feeling.

 He never wanted to experience that again.

 _La Vie en Rose,_ pretty neon signs and closed bars and an open snackbar next to it. Mark remembered the first time he went there. Over a silly bet, and then an interest turned infatuation.

 Mark remembered the very first show he attended, and then he remembered walking Jinyoung home. Always during the night. Always, always during the night. 

 Mark could not tell if Jinyoung was a creature of the night. Wondered if the only time he saw him during the day was a figment of his imagination. Mark needed to confirm that he hadn’t gone crazy. And if anything, he had the excuse of giving the tapes back. 

Midnight, a week after the last time he had been there. The nerves from going outside becoming nerves of going inside instead. 

Mark’s palms were sweating, he was wearing the same Chicago Bulls shirt from the first time. He powered through the door and the little hallway. Smacked his credit card on the bar in front of a shocked Youngjae and said,

_"One cherry vodka, please."_

 

-

 

Yes, it did cross Mark’s mind that his visit might not have been welcome. He realized that Jaebum hadn’t wanted him there since day one, and he promptly realized that he acted in the heat of the moment of a fire that he didn’t know he caused to begin with. He had come that far, and if Mark learned one thing from his friends, it was not to run away, even if you were going to get burned.

Jaebum. Mark never really stopped to think about it, but he was always next to Jinyoung. They lived together, and Jinyoung never told him more about the bartender than _he’s an idiot and I hate him_. He was sure that he wasn’t an idiot and that Jinyoung didn’t hate him.

Mark thought that Jaebum had something going on with Youngjae. The shorter, sweeter but no less serious bartender who Mark bumped into the last time he was at the club. In the dressing room and high as a kite, specifically.

Mark was a little embarrassed. Drank his Hennessy faster than usual, briefly remembered the first time he tried it.

Which was when Jaebum walked in from the dressing room, in the middle of a sentence which went something like  _’so I found a cat by our door the other day,’_ and stopped when he saw Mark by the bar. Mark looked down immediately.

Even so, he could practically _feel_ Jaebum giving Youngjae a look, and Youngjae giving him one back. They were probably saying something about him in a language only couples can understand, and when Mark thought that he was going to get thrown out now that Jaebum had an excuse to beat him up, he heard a sigh.

"Good evening, Mark." Jaebum said. 

Mark looked up immediately, not saying anything.

But Jaebum was already drying the cups that Youngjae was cleaning. The mood wasn’t tense, but a little melancholic instead. 

"You can go to the room now, if you want," Jaebum said, so Mark stood up with his heart beating a mile a minute. "Oh and Mark-"

The younger turned around. Looking at Jaebum who was looking at the cups, and then said,

_"Thank you."_

Mark wasn’t sure what he was thanking him for, but he nodded quickly and rushed in the room anyways.

 

-

 

Jinyoung was in the middle of taking his make-up off when Youngjae walked in the dressing room and closed the door behind him, Jinyoung recognized the worried expression from the reflection of the mirror, so he asked him what was up. 

"Mark is here." Youngjae said directly.

Jinyoung turned around aggressively, the name almost giving him an instant feeling of home sickness that he was not used to. It had been a week since he had last seen the younger boy, and frankly, he had given up hope that he was every going to come around again. He got the point where Jaebum asked him if he wanted him to find him, just to finish this chapter of his life that he couldn’t put a finishing dot to. 

Jinyoung always declined the offer. Shook his head and told him no. He wasn’t going to put Mark through any more confusion if he didn’t want to, and if he was perfectly honest - he could understand why he wouldn’t want to see Jinyoung ever again. 

He had almost accepted it. Shows going on like usual, joking around with snark and sarcasm. 

The only time it was ever noticeable was when Jinyoung watched two or three movies in a row after that had finished eating, and when Jaebum went to bed earlier than Jinyoung did. 

That was, until the second Friday of August, and Youngjae walked in his dressing room to tell him that Mark was there, that Mark was there for him, and he almost couldn’t believe it.

"He’s in your room," Youngjae said. "He paid for it."

Jinyoung’s happiness dropped to his stomach and he was going to be sick. Mark paid for your services sounded so dirty and unnatural that Jinyoung thought it should have been censored. 

"Did he say anything?"

"No," Youngjae said. "You can cancel if you want, but I think you should go in there."

Jinyoung had to sit down. He thought about it, and then, finally, he came to a conclusion.

"Okay," He said. "I’ll go."

So Youngjae kissed his cheek before he left, leaving with a little more courage than before.

 

-

 

 _Knowing_ that Mark was there and _seeing_ him sitting down on his bed were two completely different things. Knowing only made him nervous, seeing made his heart confused of whether it should burst in butterflies or burst from the nerves. Either way, Jinyoung softly closed the door behind him, and Mark clutched the bed sheets without looking up.

"Hi." Jinyoung said, awkwardly. Wondered if Mark really just wanted to sleep with him, wondered if he was making a fool out of himself for sitting next to Mark instead of going on his knees.

Apparently he didn’t even have to ask, because in a matter of seconds Mark was kissing him, holding the back of his head not forcefully but not without determination. The kiss was long, less in a gesture of affection and more in an attempt to get a point across. Jinyoung’s breath got caught in his throat, and he almost choked in the kiss when he pushed back and could breathe again.

He wanted to ask Mark what he was thinking, ask him what he had come all the way to the club for, but Mark had pinned his wrists against the bed before he could ask any of that. He kissed his hands, his wrists, up to his arms and then his neck, softly, kindly, then moved up to peck his lips. 

Jinyoung wasn’t used to this kind of treatment. Not unfamiliar with clients who only wanted to worship him, but a complete stranger to wanting it so badly. Which was when Mark’s hands found their way up his shirt, and Mark was kissing his tummy instead, butterfly kisses that led to Mark then abruptly pulling Jinyoung up to awkwardly sit on Mark’s lap.

"Is sitting around what you get paid for?" Mark asked, and Jinyoung gasped, looking straight in his eyes. "Didn’t I give you money to get in here? How much money do you want?" 

So in the end, Mark wanted him just for his body after all. He was young and infatuated with the prostitute and not the person, Jinyoung’s heart broke. He wondered if Mark could hear it.

"I’m sorry," Jinyoung said, looking down. "I’ll get to work."

With trembling hands and his eyes watering, Jinyoung thought that he was pathetic. Pathetic for what he looked like, ashamed for expecting love when he was ready to show it back. Mark was just like the others, after all, he thought when he unbuckled his belt, pushed his Chicago Bulls shirt up a little.

"How much?" Mark asked again, and threw Jinyoung on his back on the bed, one elbow on each side of his head. "How much for your time?" 

Jinyoung widened his eyes, mustered up the courage to look up at the younger boy, and seeing someone who looked just as vulnerable and hurt as him. He was confused, didn’t know that a heart could be repaired with superglue.

"How much to get to know you?" Mark asked, sitting back up straight, sitting between Jinyoung’s legs. "How much for a date, to talk to you, to see you during the day?" 

"Mark." Jinyoung whispered, reaching up to touch the boys face.

"You’ve hurt me, but I can’t stop thinking about you," Mark admitted. "Is there something wrong with me?" He continued. "You get paid for your time, don’t you? So why can’t I take you out on a date instead?"

"I couldn’t stop thinking about you either," Jinyoung said. "I wish we could start over again, I’m so sorry."

"I forgive you," Mark said. "Even if you never want to see me again, I’ll forgive you, we can forgive each other, but you need to be honest with me - do you want to see me during the daytime?"

Of course Jinyoung did, so he lightly pulled himself towards Mark, and kissed him on the lips. Softly, but at the same time, it felt much deeper and more emotional than any kiss they had ever shared before.

"Only if you take me somewhere nice," He whispered against his lips. "And only if you let me do my best to earn your love back."

Little did Jinyoung know that the love had never left in the first place.

But instead of saying it out loud, he let Jinyoung kiss him for a second time.

Mark was nineteen years old when he learned that love is simple in all of its complicated nature, that things can be fixed with a kiss, even if the kiss felt like an open heart surgery with a ninety nine percent chance of dying in the process. Even so, it was completely worth going under the knife for.

"I’ll hold you on to that." He said, softly. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> first of all thank u for all the comments on the previous chapter I was very very shook by the response,,, so I wrote a chapter earlier than usual. I’m not sure how I feel about this one, but a lot happened and I wonder if it’s going to fast. Either way, tell me what you think and whether or not this is the end of their trials and tribulations lol im excited for the next few chapters
> 
> thank you for reading!!


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